


Come Fly With Me

by Dan_Francisco



Series: War Stories [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, European Theater, Gen, Happy Ending, Horrors of War, Pulling a Mulan, Royal Air Force, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-08-11 09:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20151022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco
Summary: When the Second World War starts, Lena Oxton, a life-long aviation aficionado, has to masquerade as a man to join the RAF. While fighting the German Air Force over the skies of Europe her flying puts her front and center, but is it possible to keep her secret and serve King and Country?





	1. There'll Always Be an England

_July 8th, 1939_

“Come on, Lena! It's almost here!”

Lena Oxton almost stumbled over the cobblestone, barely an inch from crashing into the ground. She and her best friend since school, Bethany Stanton, had traveled to Southampton on holiday partially to see the beach, but also to see the magnificent new arrival to England. A flying boat was on their way, the radio said, flying from America over to here. It was a feat some thought impossible – at least, if you listened to the naysayers. As they neared the water's edge, Lena could see thousands of people already gathered, all looking to the sky just like her.

This was not the first time Lena had flirted with dreams of flying – indeed, she had followed Amelia Earhart's exploits with a fever passion. Father often joked that Lena was more obsessed with the American pilot than any American at the time, her head filled with dreams of taking to the sky just like her lost idol had some day. Standing here, watching the skies for something, _anything,_ it made Lena feel like she was nine again, waiting at this very same town with Father and watching Earhart land to rousing cheers.

The skies were as blue as the Channel, undaunted by the armchair experts scoffing at the entire venture. “I've a friend in America,” someone said. “Bloody thing's heavy. It'll never make it, you lot are all standing around for nothing!” She paid him no mind. He had no imagination, no sense of adventure. Off in the distance, Lena spotted a small dot. That must be it, right? It was the only explanation!

“There it is!” Lena said, smacking Bethany on the shoulder. “Do you see it?”

Surprised, Bethany began looking, her blonde hair bouncing around as her head whipped back and forth. “I… I don't see anything,” she confessed. “Are you sure?”

“Right _there!”_ Lena exclaimed, putting a hand on Bethany's shoulder and pointing to the horizon. “Do you see it now?”

“Oh! There it is, yes!”

The dot grew closer, eventually coming into the shape of the aforementioned flying boat. Sun bounced off the silvery-white metal skin that covered the plane. The rotors began to slow as it neared, dipping into the water as a wave followed it, lapping against the side of the quay as a rousing cheer erupted from the crowd. Lena’s voice was one of many, congratulating the crew on a job well done in landing the plane safely.

Lena couldn’t help but stare at the plane as it floated to a waiting dock, doors opening to allow passengers to exit. The captain stepped out, with each traveler shaking his hand as he bore a wide smile on his face. How she wished it was her standing on that dock, greeting her charges and knowing she had successfully finished another flight. She dreamed of seeing the skies, floating above the clouds effortlessly and flying across the entire world to visit Germany, Russia, Japan, America… maybe she could make her own global trip like Amelia Earhart wanted to.

“Earth to Lena?” Bethany said, waving a hand in front of her face. “Did you hear me?”

“Oh, sorry, no! I was just… thinking about flying. Wouldn’t it be great to be up there?” Lena sighed, already looking to the deep blue sky. If only she could be up there with the birds.

Bethany laughed, a bubbly, lovely noise that made Tracer’s heart flutter each time. “You’re so obsessed with flying! Really, what is it with you and the clouds?”

“What’s not to love?” Lena asked. “I mean, just think about it, it wasn’t all that long ago that we didn’t even _have_ airplanes, and now it’s like we’re flying higher and higher every day! Can you just _imagine_ what’s next?”

“Well, I guess being an air stewardess wouldn’t be _that_ bad,” Bethany said. “Could be fun, even!”

Lena scoffed, shaking her head. “No, Bethany, I don’t mean being an air stewardess, I mean being a _pilot!_ What’s the fun of being up there if you’re not in the cockpit?”

_“You?!_A _pilot?!”_

She looked around, spotting an older man with a thick white mustache that lined his upper lip, arching a bushy eyebrow at her. He scowled, the harried lines on his face showing what Lena assumed to be immense disappointment and judgment. “And what makes _you_ think you can be a pilot, darling?”

“Well, why can’t I?” Lena asked, shrugging her shoulders.

“Flying is _men’s_ work,” chimed in someone else, a cross-looking gentleman with black hair. “You women ought to stay in the home, air’s no place for your fragile frames.”

Lena felt her cheeks heat up as she frowned, her brow furrowing as she tried to come up with a response. Before she could open her mouth, Bethany was dragging her away from the two men, muttering apologies for her as she did so. They were well and away from the scene on the quay before Lena found her voice again, smoothing out her clothes that had become wrinkled with leaning over the quay’s chain fence. “You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Lena said.

“You’re _always_ getting yourself involved in arguments, you know,” Bethany replied, opening a pocket mirror to check her hair.

“It’s not my fault! Well, not _usually…”_

“Well, nevermind then, we’ve really got to get back to the train station if we’re to get home in time,” Bethany said, quickly leaving Lena behind in the dust.

_Well, it was either now or never,_ Lena thought to herself. She started walking, quickening her pace to match Bethany’s and catch up to walk alongside her, nervously swallowing. “Um, thank you for that,” she said. “I… I guess I do tend to get myself in trouble sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” Bethany said, laughing. “It’s almost like I have to help you out every week!”

“Yeah…” Lena agreed, chuckling with anxiety. “Um, Bethany, do you mind if I ask you something?”

“What?”

Had her mouth always been this dry? It was hard to tell. Almost immediately, Lena regretted ever opening the door, fearful of what the response could be. Well, she had opened it, may as well step through, right? “I… I wanted to ask if you’ve ever… maybe… I don’t know, wanted to go on a date with me sometime?”

She looked to her friend, hopeful for a positive response, but instead of that, she saw… a blank look on Bethany’s face, as she avoided Tracer’s gaze and stared at the old brick road they walked on. Slowly, her walk slowed until she had stopped entirely.

“Bethany?” Lena dared to ask, the very sound of her voice just barely eking out of her mouth.

She coughed, almost as if to clear a massive lump in her throat, still avoiding Lena’s eyes. “Sorry, I’m… well, I’m very flattered Lena, but… I’m not queer.”

Lena drew a sharp breath, closing her mouth. She should have known. It only made sense, after all. Why _would_ her best friend since grammar school like her that way, anyway? “Oh,” she said flatly. “Well… alright then. I guess we should go home, huh?”

Unfortunately, they had just missed the train, and had to wait another hour for the next one. The ride back was slow and incredibly awkward. Well, at least she had seen the flying boat on its inaugural trip. If nothing else, she could dream of flying on her way home, pushing Bethany’s rejection out of her mind.

* * *

_September 3rd, 1939_

The air in the Oxton living room was positively frigid, despite the late Summer heat. She remembered it clearly – Mother had just started lunch when the radio changed from lovely music to the Prime Minister’s voice.

_“...this country… is at war… with Germany.”_ The PM’s voice paused, for far too long as Father drew a sharp breath. _“You can imagine… what a bitter blow it is to me… that all my long struggle to win peace has failed.”_

“What… what does this mean?” Lena asked, feeling her voice waver as the Prime Minister continued to speak.

Father cleared his throat, puffing away on his pipe as he stuffed it in his mouth, using his arm to push himself out of his chair. His right sleeve hung lazily, a result of the Great War when he had been wounded fighting in France. “Well, rather simply it means that we are at war with Germany.”

Standing up, he walked slowly to the table, settling in there with an uncharacteristic weariness. “Probably means more young lads are going to be sent over to France. More men are going to lose arms, legs, heads.”

“Please, Walter, not at the table,” Mother said, frowning. “She doesn’t need to hear that.”

“Well, I can still do my part,” Lena said, heading over and pulling back a chair.

Father nodded, small clouds of smoke escaping from his lips. “Indeed. You’d make a fine secretary at any number of the downtown offices. Maybe even for a general somewhere.”

“Wait, what?” Lena asked, blinking. “No. I should be out there, helping, not sitting behind some desk!”

“No, don’t be absurd, Lena,” Father said, shaking his head as he put down his pipe. “The front line is no place for a young lady like yourself. Now, looking for a job as a secretary is excellent work, you can keep up your education whi-”

“I don’t _want_ to be a secretary, though,” she protested. “You always told me that the world could always use more heroes. So why can’t I be one of them?”

Father paused, bowing his head as he pursed his lips, a slow, drawn-out breath escaping through his nose. “Yes, I _did_ tell you that, didn’t I? Lena, the world is much more complicated than it was when you were a little girl. You _can_ be a hero, by_ staying home_ and letting stronger people do the hard work.”

“But Father, I don’t want to-”

“Lena, if there is a _single thing_ I learned while serving King and Country, it is that this nation does not _care_ what you _want._ Tomorrow, you will go down and you will knock on doors looking for a job as a secretary, _here,_ at _home._ Is that understood?”

She swallowed hard, frowning as she reluctantly nodded. “Yes, sir,” Lena said quietly.

* * *

_September 4th, 1939_

Lena had spent four hours so far, wandering her way through downtown London with no success. Not a single business was looking for secretaries, at least not the ones she went to. At each one, she had introduced herself just like father had instructed her to, but the second she said “secretary” they slammed the door – figuratively and in some cases, quite literally – in her face. Lena couldn’t understand it – everyone said she was qualified, but the excuse was either “not now” or “we’re going for a _more qualified_ candidate.” How much hard work could this be?

Dejected, she continued to walk the streets of London, facing more employers only to be turned away at every corner. Disheartening didn’t even begin to describe how she felt. If there had ever been a lower point in her life, it surely was nowhere near as rock-bottom as this. How could anyone keep up hope when in such a desperate situation like this? She sighed heavily, collapsing on a bench outside yet another business that had rejected her.

“Oi, cheer up, lad, could always join the Army,” a passer-by said to her, quickly disappearing into the crowd.

Lena looked up, swiveling her head left and right. It looked like he had been talking to her, but she was the only one on this bench. Confused, she blinked, trying to derive meaning from what the man had said. Something just didn’t make sense about it. Maybe he had mistaken her for someone else. She sighed, leaning down to grab her things.

She paused just as she bent over, staring at her clothes. Almost as if a light had gone off in her head, the man’s nebulous comment began to make sense. In a rush, she had spilled morning tea on the dress she was intending to wear today, borrowing one of Father’s old suits despite Mother’s protests that it wasn’t “ladylike”.

Well, perhaps being ladylike wasn’t for her. The thought began to pass through her head, an inkling of an idea, then forming into a full-fledged plan. She wasn’t stupid, Father had told her plenty of stories about squatting in a trench with little better than a hole for a bathroom. They’d know quickly she wasn’t who she said she was. Lena wasn’t much a fan of the idea of being stuck on a ship for weeks on end.

But she _had_ always dreamed of being a pilot, and as she looked up, she saw a nice, pretty poster. “See life from a new angle,” it said, showing a wing over the idyllic English countryside. “Join the RAF.” And, almost as if by fate, she could see the recruitment office right there. The opportunity was right there. She could take it right now. The suit had clearly fooled the fellow on the street, so maybe it’d be good enough for the RAF? If nothing else, she could find a more permanent solution to hide her bust later. Lena took in a deep breath, grabbing her things and marching right into the office.

Behind the desk stood a man wearing a light blue uniform, a thin black mustache on his face. The wrinkled lines on his forehead told Lena he must have almost always been cross with someone over something, if not just generally upset all the time. He looked up, standing to shake her hand and offering a slight smile. “Welcome to the Royal Air Force, lad. Captain Palmer, how can I help you?”

Lena coughed, nervously gulping. “Um, yes, I’d like to be a pilot, if at all possible.”

Captain Palmer nodded, gesturing for her to take a seat. He sat down as well, opening up a file. “Well, you’ve made the right choice, lad. Ah, what’s your name?”

On the inside, Lena panicked, keeping a straight poker face as she desperately sought a name. “Leonard,” she blurted out. “Leonard Oxton.”

The captain nodded, checking a file he had and frowning. “I don’t see you on here. Hmm, must not have been called up to be a militiaman. Are you local, Leonard? Or just here in London on holiday?”

“Local,” she answered.

“I see. How old are you? Sounding a bit young over there,” Captain Palmer said, jotting this down on a notepad.

“Oh, I’m 20, actually. Always had this kinda voice,” Lena replied, awkwardly laughing. Was it hot in here, or was it just her?

“What’s your education look like?” he asked, not reacting at all to her explanation. “Gone to university?”

Lena shook her head. “Haven’t had the money.”

The captain jotted this answer down, sliding over a packet to her. “Well, just off of your answers alone, I’d like to get you into a uniform as soon as possible. Right in that packet, you’ve got all the information you need to settle your affairs and gather up whatever it is you’ll need, as well as when to come back here to see yourself off to training.”

“Wait, just like that?” Lena asked taken aback at how quickly – and easily – it had happened. “I thought there’d be a bit… well, _more_ to it.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, no. Leonard, make no mistake, you’ve got a long path ahead of you, and there’s barely even a guarantee that you’ll be a pilot. Medical exam stops a lot of dreams of being a fighter ace well before they even hit the airfield. But, you look healthy, fit, you seem a smart young lad, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Lena nodded, chuckling with even more nervous energy than she had beforehand. The packet had not just the information the Captain was talking about, such as organizing finances, letting family and friends know of “his” departure for the RAF, and a checklist of everything a potential flier needed before heading out.

Well, either she had just made a great choice, or doomed any chance of finding a job.


	2. The Girl I Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena faces the fallout from her impromptu decision to join the RAF.

“You’ve done _what?!”_

She had known Father would be upset, or at least a little. Lena thought that, perhaps just maybe, she could have implicit approval from him, something she could be proud of. She was a single child, after all, and she desperately sought his approval. After all, if he couldn’t be proud of his only daughter, where else could she seek approval? It wasn’t as if she could bring a man home – she suspected Father already knew of her particular leanings on _that_ touchy subject. What she hadn’t expected was for him to react so angrily to this news.

“This is _much more_ that simply being a rebellious child, Lena,” Father growled, practically shaking in anger. “This is _breaking the law!_ If you get caught doing this, you could be tried in a military court and executed! Do you understand that?!”

“But, I-” Lena stammered. “I-I just want to help. W-why would they do that?”

_“__Because you lied to them!”_ he shouted, throwing her information packet to the floor, spilling its contents everywhere. “The military does not like to be taken for a fool, Lena, and guess what you do if this gets out!”

She swallowed, feeling tears flow down her face as she quite unintentionally began to cry. A stilted whimper of a sob dashed out from her lips as she hung her head in shame. She really _had_ been pretty stupid, hadn’t she? Maybe she was deluding herself. Maybe she really did deserve to just sit behind a desk, lock away her dreams of flying for after the war.

“I’m sorry,” she squeaked out. “I just wanted to make you proud.”

Father paused. She heard his heavy shoes walk over to her solemnly. His feet stopped on her right, before slowly turning in place as he settled himself on the couch next to her. As she tried to calm herself down, mostly unsuccessfully, she felt her father’s arm draped across her shoulders, his hand squeezing her left shoulder. “Darling, you’ve already made me proud. You don’t need to sacrifice yourself in a war in order to find my approval.”

Lena closed her eyes, leaning into Father’s chest, soaking his shirt as she was unable to stop the flow of tears. “I just want to help out.”

“I know you do, Lena. I know. Take it from an old soldier. This is not something you want to be involved in.”

He took his arm off her shoulder, using his hand to cup her face and life her head to look at him, a look of mixed consternation, depression, and reserved compassion on Father’s face. “I know you very much would like to help, emulate your heroes. Please, recognize this. War is not a place for you.”

“Alright,” she sighed, nodding. “I… I guess I’ll have to come clean tomorrow.”

“Mhm,” Father said. “You will.”

Father patted her shoulder, getting off the couch to turn the radio on so he could listen to the evening news.

Lena headed to bed, emotionally wrecked and still a mess. She was certain what Father had said was meant to help her, yet she found his guidance lacking and overall detrimental to helping her make an actual decision. On one hand, this was the opportunity she was looking for. As far as she could see, this was the only chance she would ever get to achieve her dream of flying. And yet, the gravity of Father’s words hung over her like the shadows of an oncoming storm.

Her sleep was interrupted constantly as she tossed and turned through the night, wrestling with the choice she should make. Stay home, or continue her masquerade?

* * *

Lena’s mood had not improved with the coming morning. The dread of having to confess her crimes to the captain weighed down on her, and the rain wasn’t much making it better. London was positively dreary today, a perfect fit for her dour mood as she meandered, wasting as much time as possible to head towards the RAF recruitment center. The news only spoke about the impending war with Germany, talking of British troops heading over to France to counter the German threat just as they had done in 1914. Every office, the throngs of people, practically the entire city itself seemed indifferent to her plight.

By chance, she stared at a window, pretending to have spotted something interesting. The ghost of her face, a shadow cast over it by the stress and sheer unwillingness to actually do what she had been told stared back at Lena, a hollow shell of a woman with no hope, no dreams, no future. Who was this woman that stood silently in a transparent world? Was this truly her destiny? Trapped behind a desk, affecting nothing but the location of some paper? As if she could envision the future in this window, she saw herself 30 years later, with her lips thin and face wrinkled, wishing she had done _something_ more helpful with her life.

Lena blinked once, then twice, shaking her head. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the premonition faded away. No, this couldn’t be her fate, _wouldn’t._ There was no other option she saw. Lena had to defy her father, lie to him and join the RAF anyway. After all, it wasn’t as if they actually _knew_ she wasn’t who she said she was. Lena could hide herself. Gone was the depressed face of Lena Oxton. It had been replaced by the resolute, determined face of Leonard Oxton, Royal Air Force recruit and brave soldier serving his King and Country.

Who just happened to be wearing a dress.

She still had Father’s suit from yesterday, and in the chaos of last night, he had never bothered to look for it. Lena looked back at the packet Captain Palmer had given her. The date to leave had been circled with a red pen, September 10th 1939\. That was the day Leonard was to return to be picked up for training. So what if Father had said she couldn’t do it? What did she care of court-martials? Britain was at _war,_ and if she couldn’t help, then what did that make her? Leno swiftly turned around, heading back home. Figuring out how to hide everything could come later, she had six days, after all.

* * *

“Lena, you _did_ straighten things out with the Air Force, didn’t you?” Father asked, chewing away on dinner.

She nodded, taking a sip of water. “Mhm. I actually managed to get a job working in the Foreign Office as a secretary!”

“Really?” Father said, impressed. “Well, given what you did, I’m surprised. Perhaps they decided to overlook your lying. Do you know where at?”

“No,” Lena replied, shaking her head. “I’m supposed to go in for orientation on Sunday.”

Father cocked an eyebrow, not saying a word as he studied her face. Did he see through the deception? She wasn’t sure. Lena could feel her heart racing, just waiting for him to call her bluff.

“On a Sunday?” Mother asked. “Well, that sounds unusual. Won’t miss church, I hope.”

“They’re taking us up to Cambridge for it, not sure why,” Lena lied. “Might have to leave early, they told us it would be an all-day thing.”

“Hmm,” Father hummed, poking at the meat on his plate. “Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for in this job, Lena. I think it’ll do you some good to go out and see the world for a little.”

Lena smiled, half at her father’s implicit approval for a very much fake job but also at successfully fooling her parents. Only a few days until her new path, and new life, began. She went to bed with dreams of roaming the skies in her head, defending Britain from the Germans with tenacity and bravery.

* * *

_September 10th, 1939_

Lena stood at the recruiting office, on the curb with several men who all had bags slung over their shoulders, smartly dressed and waiting for their bus to come. They had shared cigarettes, offering one to Lena, which she had politely declined. Captain Palmer was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t much matter in the end. Her new life was beginning, and she was more than eager to start. It was a sunny day, just before 10 when the bus arrived. A man in a light blue uniform stepped out, affixing a small peaked cap to his head, staring at them with clear derision in his face.

“Get on my bus!” he shouted, widely waving his arm at them. “Come on! Faster!”

Surprised, the collected men began to push and shove their way onto the bus, moving haphazardly and not at all quick enough for him. He constantly harangued them for alternatively not moving fast enough, moving sloppily, or generally not meeting whatever nebulous standards he had. Her heart raced as she settled in a seat next to a lanky man with black hair, nervously looking around with ever noise.

“Eyes forward!” the man shouted, standing at the head of the bus. He looked down on them, scowling as he passed over each pair of eyes. “Stop looking at me! Eyes _forward,_ you worthless sacks!”

Getting the hint, Lena fixed her eyes straight ahead, staring out the bus’s front window. The gentleman at the front introduced himself as Sergeant Harper, announcing that no talking was allowed while they were on their way to the training station, and promised a harsh punishment for anyone who dared to violate this order. She swallowed hard, trying to relax with the bag of her things weighing in front of her and on her legs. So far, it wasn’t working.

What felt like an agonizing hour later, the bus arrived at a nondescript base, and Sergeant Harper ordered them off the bus, organizing them in two lines and marching them into a large square building, covered with red brickwork. Inside, the entire area was covered with doctors, men in RAF uniforms, and officers that oversaw the entire affair. Nurses ran notepads back and forth, scribbling down notes and information.

Lena looked to her left, spotting men being stripped down to their underwear. _Oh no._ A physical exam. She had forgotten all about this. They were sure to figure out her deception here. Her entire future and freedom could be in danger before it ever began. They were allowed some time to reorganize themselves and be called up in groups, time Lena used to find a doctor who looked to be in charge.

“Excuse me,” she said, approaching a doctor with salt-and-pepper hair, his half-dead eyes looking up at her. “Um, are you in charge?”

“Yes,” he said. “Why?”

“I _need_ to pass this physical,” she pleaded, keeping her voice low. “Please. I’ll do anything.”

Confused, the doctor’s mouth hung agape as he stared back, cocking an eyebrow. “Young man, you had better go back to your friends, if you’re afraid of-”

“Sir, _please._ I can’t go in there. If they do that physical, they’ll find something wrong with me. I know they will.”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before joining the military,” the doctor replied, narrowing his eyes. “You will go through the exams like everyone else, now-”

“I’m begging you,” Lena said, feeling her voice crack. “I can’t go home anymore, sir. This is all I have, I _need_ to go out there and fly. At least a _chance_ at it. I-I’ll give you everything in my pocket, here, 20 pounds.”

Lena fished the notes out of her pocket, trying to shove them into his hands discreetly. He frowned at her, looking around. She hoped he wasn’t about to call someone over to arrest her. After a few seconds, he took the notes and folded them up neatly, storing them in his shirt pocket.

“Alright,” he said. “Only since you’re so bloody worried about it. Come with me.”

She sighed in relief, following the doctor to a room on the side. “You!” he said to a nurse. “I need you with me, come on.”

Nearby, a nurse jumped, whipping around. _Oh no,_ Leno thought as she watched the nurse head her way. _She’s hot._ The three headed into an examination room, where he had Lena sit on a table as the nurse stood by.

“Um, excuse me, Doctor,” the nurse said. _Oh Lord,_ Lena thought. _I could listen to her read out of a phone book._ Such a _lovely_ Scottish accent. “I don’t have this man on the list.”

“Special circumstance,” he said. “Just take notes and don’t ask questions, alright love?” He cleared his throat, jotting something down on a notepad of his own. “Right. Name?”

“Uh, Len-Leonard Oxton,” Lena said, finding herself _far_ too distracted by the nurse.

“Are you fit? No heart disease or anything like that?”

Lena nodded. “I’m nice and healthy.”

The doctor rolled his eyes. “Smoke? Drink?”

“Only wine on Sundays, never picked up a cig in my life.”

He glanced at her, as if skeptical of this claim. Finally, he sighed, shaking his head. “Alright. Miss… McAllister, make sure they know he’s been cleared, will you?”

“But, Doctor, we didn’t even-”

“I said he’s been cleared for service, and that’s that. This man will have his chance to prove his worth.”

Staring pointedly at Lena, the doctor left, leaving just her and Nurse McAllister alone in the room. God, her red hair just looked amazing in that hat. She couldn’t help but wonder if she styled it like that all the time, or just in special circumstances. Lena could feel her heart beating a million miles a minute. She was just so _beautiful,_ and it was taking a _lot_ to not throw away everything to run away with her to rolling Scottish greens.

She found herself blinking as the nurse turned to face her, shaking her head. “Well, come on,” Nurse McAllister said. “You need to get your immunizations.”

Lena cleared her throat, still trying to maintain a level-headed facade. “Right, uh-huh. Um, lead the way, I think?”

Rolling her eyes, Nurse McAllister led Lena to a different room, where a line of people stabbed men in their arms with a variety of needles, the purpose of each one Lena didn’t know. The nurse escorted her into the line, rolling up her sleeve. Her fingers were soft, delicate, like she was unswaddling a baby rather than preparing Lena for shots.

“So, um,” Lena muttered, trying to make at least _some_ small talk with her. “Come here often?”

Wordlessly, Nurse McAllister tapped a needle, methodically piercing her arm’s skin effortlessly. Lena couldn’t help but recoil at the sudden invasion of her body, yelping slightly. Did she hear it? Oh, who was she kidding, of _course_ the hot Scottish nurse heard it. Her arm feeling like it suddenly weighed a million pounds, Lena was shoved elsewhere into the building. Gone were the doctors and nurses here, no this was a purely military domain. She and countless others had been formed together in a line, where a soldier quickly measured their legs and arms, as well as wrapping his tape measure around their chest.

“Next!” the sergeant called, waving the line forward. Like a well-oiled machine, each man was measured, starting first with his chest and arms.

“Size 10 short,” the tailor called out. Behind him, two other men rummaged through a pile of jackets, finding what was evidently the correct one and lobbing it at the man to receive it. Next, he measured the legs and waist. “Size 16, we should still have some of those lying around.”

Lena was up next. The tailor cocked his eyebrow at her, before shaking his head and measuring her up. “Size 1 on both! Bloody hell, you’re probably the shortest lad we’ve had today.”

The clothes got lobbed at Lena, and from there the bag of her things were tossed to her. A less-than-enthusiastic sergeant escorted her to another bus, where they were to go for pilot training at another station.

Well, so far it didn’t seem that bad.


	3. Europe Anno 1939

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena begins training for the RAF.

Lena hated doing drill.

She never understood a single word the sergeants said, feeling like they were speaking to her in a different language. The food was positively terrible. She was completely _exhausted_ after every day, collapsing into her bunk and awaken far too early the next morning. She hadn’t even gotten any _flying_ in yet. It was all just theoretical work, learning math and physics and attending lectures that bored her out of her skull.

So why was she out here, in the middle of the cold, holding a rifle that everyone kept telling her she’d never use? Why were they constantly marching every day, every night, every single morning, as if they’d ever have to do this? None of it made sense to Lena. When could she just get into the bloody _plane_ already?

“Port arms!”

The sound of a hundred rifles clattered together as they executed the required order, bringing their weapons in front of them. They had to have done this thousands of times by now. What was even the point of all this? Lena hadn’t even so much as seen a plane yet, aside from biplanes that flew over their barracks periodically, taunting her as she labored in the drill field day after day. She had heard rumors that, one day, she too would be part of these new pilots, learning how to fly just like their instructors. The day really couldn’t come soon enough. Thankfully, relief was soon at hand – they were dismissed for lunch.

* * *

_November 20th, 1939_

The weeks of lectures, theorizing, and tests that practically drove Lena insane finally came to an end. Today, she was going to fly. She, along with several others in her training wing, had been outfitted in the typical flying gear. Leather helmet, flying goggles, and a flightsuit became her new outfit of the day, not at all like the light blue wool uniform she had been wearing on the drill field and in the classroom.

Before them stood an instructor, behind him the de Havilland Tiger Moth, the biplane they would be learning on today. Their instructor, a Mr. Purcell, looked at them in formation, his rather impressive mustache twitching. “Alright, lads,” he finally said, “today you lot get to learn how to fly. Oxton! You’re first up. Come get your wings.”

He swiftly turned around, getting into the rear cockpit in order to set up flight controls. Lena practically bolted after him, eager to get into the pilot’s seat after so many months of waiting. The air was cool, crisp, fitting for a late November day near Swansea. Sitting herself down comfortably, Lena smiled wide as she let out an excited huff of air. _This_ is why she had joined the RAF. Not to endlessly drill with a rifle she’d never use for hours on end, not to attend lectures and listen to old men drone on about mathematics and navigation. No, she had come here to _fly._

“Alright Oxton, engine’s starting.”

In front of her, the prop began to turn, slowly at first. Soon, though, it became a blur as Mr. Purcell had her increase the throttle – again, slowly, so as not to force the aircraft to veer off to one side or another as they took off. Lena watched the instrument panel come to life, the altimeter and airspeed indicator slowly going up and up as they headed down the runway. Before she knew it, the little plane had leveled itself, now running parallel to the ground.

“Good, good,” Mr. Purcell said. “Alright, pull the stick towards you so we can gain some altitude here.”

The force of the cold wind started to hit her face as the little biplane began to lift up, and before she knew it the horizon had left her vision, only seeing blue sky in front of her. She was really doing it – she was _flying._ Nothing in her life matched the thrill and pure exhilaration of being well above the ground, watching the fields and farms grow smaller and smaller.

“Ascend to angels 2. We’ll do some basic turns up at that height.”

Angels two – two thousand feet above the ground. Lena could get this little plane that high. She pulled the stick towards her again, tipping the nose of the aircraft up.

“Don’t stall yourself out,” Mr. Purcell warned. “You’re losing speed. Angle’s too high.”

Right. Lena eased off, lowered her angle of ascent. Seemed to be going smoothly.

“Good, level off now. When you’re ready, execute a right-hand turn.”

She looked to her right, visualizing the path her plane was about to take. Slowly, but confidently, she manipulated the rudder pedals and moved the stick to the right, working the flaps and stabilizer to work in conjunction and turn the plane smoothly and easily. Just like she planned.

“Nice turn. Alright, turn left now.”

Second verse, same as the first. Another smooth turn, with nothing worse for wear.

“Excellent. Alright, start descending and head back to the airfield, but let’s do it slowly, yes? Don’t want to starve the engine of fuel.”

Lena did as ordered, slowly and carefully heading back to the airfield. She eased off on the throttle – after all, descending might put her over the never exceed speed of the plane – and, much like a feather falls gently on a lake, she circled down to lead in for the landing.

“Alright, I’ll take it from here,” Mr. Purcell said, disabling her controls. With a finely-tuned essence, he softly put the plane down with only a minor jolt as wheels made contact with the ground once more.

Her heart was pounding, face blasted by wind made colder by being higher in the air, and every bit of her shook. And yet, she wanted desperately to get back in the plane and fly again.

“You’re done, Oxton,” Mr. Purcell said. “Get out and let the next man fly.”

Lena almost wanted to defy him, take the plane and fly away forever. But, she couldn’t do that, not before learning even more, become the ace that they talked about so often in lectures. She could do it. Lena just _knew_ she could. She’d be the best pilot the RAF had, and then some.

* * *

Flying the Tiger Moth proved rather easy. Lena learned quickly how to perform loops, rolls, and recover from spins with relative ease. Mr. Purcell was impressed with her flying, and before December was over she was making solo flights to clock hours to count for her pilot’s wings. Soon, she was no longer simply flying to learn, she was flying to master technical fighter pilot skills like the chase, proper gun lead, and shaking an enemy that had gotten on her tail. Elementary flying school ended in February for her, with Lena immediately shunted over to Service Flying Training School, where she finally got to see the actual planes she would be flying, and not just be relegated to biplanes.

Immediately, Lena knew she was in the right place. New Hawker Hurricanes had been provided for them, their brown and green camouflage paintjob showing exactly where they’d fly. Lena had heard of the news from the rest of Europe, where the German invasion of Poland had ended with the Soviet Union occupying eastern Poland. According to the RAF newspapers, the German army had begun building up just opposite of France, with nobody willing to cross the French border. Well, all well and good for Lena. She didn’t want the fight to end before she could get there, after all.

The Hurricane proved an excellent plane, easily providing Lena with good visibility and a stable gun platform. As she learned to recover from spins, stalls, and prevent a “float carburetor failure”, her hours only ticked further and further up. She was close to getting her wings, she just knew it. Before long, she’d be out in the skies above Europe, shooting down German aircraft without a problem. Lena took every recommendation from the aces themselves to heart, writing down notes as they watched gun camera footage and the experts debated on the proper angles and leads to give to various fighters.

Before long, she was flying in formation with her training squadron mates, running mock patrols and escorting a bomber wing that was also conducting training. She couldn’t help but feel a childlike glee every time she went up to the sky, ascending to level height and watching the clouds fly past her. If all went well, by June she’d be moving on to her so-called “wartime” squadron.

* * *

_May 7th, 1940_

The bus screeched to a halt outside Lena’s new station, RAF Croydon. She had finally finished her training, earning her commission as a Flying Officer with her new squadron. Supposedly, Lena would be meeting her commanding officer today, and finally get a Hawker Hurricane all her own. Nothing but blue skies for miles as she stepped off the bus, a bag of her things slung over her shoulder. It was _good_ to be here.

Heading into the barracks, Lena claimed a bed, eager to meet the ground crew and see what being part of an actual RAF squadron was like. Her flight had three planes to it, of which Lena’s was one, and supposedly the other pilot was new like she was. Next to her, a man with brown hair tossed a bag onto one of the other beds, glancing up to look at her as he puffed away on a cigarette.

“You one of the new pilots?” he asked, looking her up and down.

Lena extended a hand, smiling wide. “Yup! Leonard Oxton!”

He glanced at the hand, before shaking it. “Brendan Dyson. Londoner?”

“Born and raised! Where are you from?”

“Manchester.”

“Great!” Lena said. “We’re gonna make a great team, I just know it!”

Right as Dyson started to take a long drag on his cigarette, no doubt thinking of something to say in response, a sergeant came into the room, clutching a letter. Mail call already? That was weird.

“Which one of you two is Oxton?” he asked, staring at the letter.

“Uh, I am,” Lena said, raising her hand.

The sergeant looked up, heading over to her and handing the letter off. “This thing’s been making the rounds. Guess someone’s looking for some lad named Oxton. We’ve had about four others who weren’t him, so just let me know if that isn’t you, will you?”

Confused, Lena looked over the letter. It was addressed to a Mr. Oxton, with the return address…

The return address was _home._

“Well?” the sergeant said. “Is it you or not?”

“Oh, uh,” Lena muttered. “Y-yeah, it’s me. Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Fucking finally,” he muttered, walking away.

Next to her, Dyson blew out a small cloud of smoke. “What, don’t often get letters from home?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just… well, Father didn’t much want me to go be a pilot.”

“Oh,” Dyson said, nodding. “Yeah, I get how that goes.”

Lena sat down on her bunk, carefully opening the envelope to reveal the letter inside. Like she was threading a needle, she opened the letter.

_Mr. Oxton,_

_ I hope you are well, first and foremost. We have not heard from your sister Lena in some time. Was hoping she would be safe with you, but I fear that may not be the case. We have searched tirelessly for answers, receiving none. Perhaps overseas service is restricting her ability to send and receive letters, which is why we have reached out to you._

_ Mother and I are safe. We have heard the news about Jerry. Hopefully, this Adolf fellow will see sense and go home. There is much we have to talk about next time you are able to visit. We cannot stop you from your adventures, now that you have gone and actually joined that flying circus. Mother and I can only hope that you continue to be safe and healthy, and that you may forgive us so that we can communicate with one another again._

_ We would like to emphasize you always have a home here with us, even if you don’t believe so. I realize I may have said things which may have frightened you or given off the wrong impression, but I have prayed every day for your safe return and will continue to do so for as long as this lasts. We both sincerely hope that this war, and this rift between us, will not last long._

_ Please come home, and be sure to bring Lena with you if at all possible._

_ Your loving father,_

_ Walther Oxton_

Lena blinked once, then twice as she felt her eyes well up with tears. This was a less than stellar start to her RAF career. How had they even figured out she had gone and joined, anyway? Should she even write back? If she did… well, they _did_ say they couldn’t stop her, but… there was a small twinge of fear that if Father knew where she was, he might just come down here and reveal everything. Would he really do that?

She sighed, wiping away her tears. It wouldn’t do any good to start crying now. Lena tucked the letter away, figuring it was best to ignore it for now. Maybe one day she would reply to it, reassure Mother and Father that she was alright. For now, she had to get to her plane, learn what was to be asked of them. Defense of England? Or perhaps they’d be going over to France now?

She could only assume what the future had in store for her.


	4. Over the Hills and Far Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena enters first combat with the Germans over France.

_May 12th, 1940_

Today was the day, their first real combat mission. Lena, Dyson, and their flight commander, Flight Lieutenant Jesse Horne, were over in France and tasked with escorting several bombers on a campaign to destroy bridges that were termed to be of “vital importance” to the Germans. Lena could barely contain her excitement, between flying – _actual_ flying, not just shuttling themselves and their planes over to France – and meeting the Germans in combat. She had spent hours studying the identification booklet, having memorized the characteristics of every German aircraft that the RAF knew of.

She was acutely aware of her own breathing, accentuated by the oxygen mask that made every breath sound a million times louder. Just like back home, nothing but blue skies for miles around. Other than the dull roar of her plane’s engine, there was virtually nothing else to listen for.

“Alright, lads,” Horne said over the radio. “Everyone’s at angels ten, right?”

Lena looked down at her altimeter. “Right at here,” she reported. Perhaps a few feet over, but three or four feet didn’t make _that_ much difference.

“At angels ten here, sir,” Dyson said.

“Good. Good luck out there, lads. Jerry’s been quiet, but that’s not going to last.”

Lena let out a breath. The nervous anticipation was driving her mad. She looked to her left – a handful of Fairey Battle bombers were their precious cargo to escort. Below, the green fields of Belgium – or were they over the Netherlands already? - rolled by as her plane flew on its escort mission. She was on the inner edge of the escort, about a good mile or two away from the bombers. Close enough to swoop in should any Germans suddenly appear. The day was cloudless, so in case anything _did_ come out, they should be able to spot it relatively easily.

“Approaching target area now,” one of the bomber pilots reported.

Lena began to search, bowing her head to look underneath the metal frame that enshrouded her cockpit. For all its glass, apparently nobody had decided to just make the entire thing a single piece, terracing it like an old cottage window. Nothing so far. Skies were clear.

“Jerry!” someone shouted over the radio. “Low! Low! Low!”

_Here we go,_ Lena thought as she rocked her wings to get a look below. Yup, German planes alright, looked like 109s judging by the long, square cockpit. Green and tan paint mixed with a black and white Iron Cross that had been pained just aft of the cockpit, a swastika on the tail flash for good measure.

Just as quickly as it appeared, in a flash of white the German plane disappeared, zipping up and past her. She could hear the muffled sound of four machine guns firing in synchronization, no doubt one of the bombers being fired on. Green tracers flew past her in a line, like a wave over the water. Time to fight back. Lena circled around, rolling her Hurricane to slip in behind a German that was in a dive.

Angle looked good. She had the 109 in her sights. He was weaving, no doubt had already spotted her in his mirror. She’d have to get the timing just right, otherwise he could pull up and out of her line of fire before she could adjust. There we go, he maintained his pattern too long. Lena let forth a short burst, but the first several shots were invisible. Where were her bullets going? Incredibly late, a bolt of yellow shot out, showing she was low. _Far_ too low, in fact. She was practically shooting under the other fellow.

Okay, no need to panic. She could adjust. _Wait, no,_ she thought as he pulled up. Lena followed, doing her best to keep her sights on him despite the plethora of bullets that were beginning to fill the air. How many Germans _were_ there?

“Oxton! 109 on your six!”

Lena checked her mirror – Dyson was, unfortunately, all too right. She watched the German’s guns light up, hearing bullets crack the air around her even through the roar of the engine and glass surrounding her. Something pinged off of metal, but she wasn’t sure what. Where was the German in front of her? Could she shake the one behind and fire at this one at the same time? Probably not.

Couldn’t just sit here forever. Had to move. Lena swung left, tried to get into a barrel roll. Just as she banked, however, she felt the engine solidly _clunk._ She looked at her instruments, confused, before realizing with horror she had accidentally introduced the very problem she had trained so hard to avoid. Lena had starved the engine of fuel, took too many negative Gs and caused a stoppage. _No, no, no,_ she couldn’t have this problem crop up, not when there was a 109 on her. She tried to restart the engine, get it level again so the fuel could flood back into it.

One turnover, then another. The engine roared back to life beautifully, and she was back in the fight just like that. She checked her mirror – the German was still on her tail, trying to line up again for another burst.

“Keep him distracted, Oxton, I’m coming in for a pass!”

Horne’s plane soon appeared in her mirror, and inspired by his quick reactions, she kept the German guessing, watching bursts of green and red tracer bullets sail past her plane uselessly. She heard the tell-tale sound of weapons fire, looking back to see the German’s tail falling off, descending below.

“Nice shooting!”

Horne didn’t reply, breaking off to engage another German. Lena joined in, circling around the German planes flying like vultures around their now vulnerable bombers. Black puffs of smoke started to appear in the air around friendly planes, signaling the arrival of German anti-air batteries – ack-ack for short. Lena watched a 109 dive down on a bomber, raking it with machine gun fire and breaking a wing off. Another one fell just as quickly, practically exploding into flames.

“Oh my God,” Lena exclaimed, feeling her eyes grow wide.

The ack-ack filling the air was becoming deadly now. Lena engaged another German, with each round that burst near her plane rocking it like a boat in rough waters. She was sure she heard something breaking, but her panel looked fine and didn’t report anything out of the ordinary. _Let’s try this again,_ she thought as she aligned the German’s plane in her sights. Shoot higher up this time, don’t keep it dead on. How had she forgotten that last time?

She watched the plane in front of her get several new holes, none of which much helped its flying characteristics, but it didn’t go down. Lena swore she saw smoke pouring out from one of the holes, maybe she had hit the enemy 109’s oil cooling system or similar? Either way, she soon had a new problem – another plane, this one a Heinkel He 112, had appeared behind her and it was rather cross with her.

Another mix of green and red tracers flew past her plane. She had to maneuver carefully to avoid stalling the engine again, and avoid this fellow’s fire. Running him into scissors might do it. Lena swung left, then right again, much shorter this time, and on the third turn, which nearly clipped his wings, the enemy He 112 overshot, putting him right in Lena’s sights. One burst, and he earned a new hole in his right wing.

“Another bomber’s been hit!” someone called out over the radio. Lena looked to the right, spotting one of their bombers fall out of the sky, small chunks of metal flying off from it. The other one wasn’t looking too hot either, with massive black clouds spurting up around it.

“Bloody hell,” Horne said. “Milkman, this is Viceroy. Are we continuing on this attack, over?”

“Affirmative,” the lead bomber, Milkman, reported. “We don’t have the chops to outfly Jerry, may as well keep the flight going.”

Another terrible shock rocked her plane. Something wasn’t working right. She checked her gauges – good all around. Still had fuel. She couldn’t _see_ any damage on her wings, but couldn’t be totally sure. Germans were everywhere. If they stayed here any longer… would they even be able to fly back to base?

Lena swooped down, ignoring the hole-ridden fighter in front of her to assist one of the bombers that was under attack by a 109. He had come low under the bomber, outside of its defensive turrets. Well, she couldn’t just let this plane strafe it without being at least stopped. Even as the ack-ack exploded around her, Lena still headed right for the enemy 109, opening up bursts of her own as it tried to evade. _This _one wouldn’t be getting away. Holes popped up in the enemy’s fuselage and wings, and it turned into a sharp dive. Satisfied, Lena looked in her mirror, spotting the bomber she had just saved, with a friendly Hurricane flying close by.

Mere seconds later, that same Hurricane burst into flames, its tail breaking off.

“We lost another!”

“Fuel report, what time do we have?” Horne asked.

Paralyzed, Lena could barely even look down, circling her plane around to try and spot the falling Hurricane. Whose was it? She wasn’t sure if she had ever met him. Was it Dyson? No, that wasn’t his number. As the burning plane fell to the ground, she heard the others reporting on fuel levels and time until bingo fuel.

“Oxton, fuel?” Horne asked. “Oxton! Fuel! Now!”

“R-right,” she said. Half a tank left. Probably about thirty minutes if she kept it steady. “Uh, I’m reading 32 minutes of fuel here.”

“Not great, not terrible. Alright, break off, we’re going back to base.”

Lena looked around – there was still a bomber flying. “W-wait, what about Milkman? Doesn’t he need our help?”

“I’m bloody waffling, might have to bail out,” Milkman relayed. Lena checked his plane – his was the only bomber still flying, but even that was generous. It looked more like falling with style.

“We’re heading back to base, Oxton. Form up, we’re getting out of here.”

Lena watched the friendly bomber slowly grow smaller and smaller as she turned to rejoin her flight, heading back to France. A quick check showed she had a fuel leak in her Hurricane, a problem that they’d have to fix. Seemed like a slow leak – the fuel gauge wasn’t going down excessively fast. Most of them had damaged planes, but it wasn’t anything that a quick patch up or a workover with the engine couldn’t fix. It would be a long flight back to base indeed.

* * *

Debriefing told a sorry tale. All five Fairey Battle bombers had been deemed lost, either shot down by enemy fire, or in the case of Milkman himself, forced to crash-land somewhere. Two Hurricanes had been shot down. Nearly every plane in the squadron that had gone out that day had been damaged in some way, and for the moment cohesion was lost as Squadron Leader Halahan, known as “Bull” among the veterans of the squadron, was declared formally MIA. Dyson claimed he had seen Halahan’s plane shot down, but couldn’t verify if a chute had followed with is.

It wasn’t all bad. Their squadron claimed four Me 109s and two He 112s shot down, both verified by the wing commander. Lena’s swats couldn’t be confirmed though, and so she remained empty-handed alongside Dyson in the flight. Reports from the ground crew were less than enthusiastic as well. Lena’s plane had indeed sprung a leak, in addition to several holes that covered the rear end of the fuselage.

“Right,” Horne said, closing his folder and standing up. “Good work, lads, I’m told it should take a few days to fix up our planes. We’ve got more Hurricanes heading over now, with any luck we’ll beat back Jerry and start turning the war against them.”

Lena nodded, absentmindedly twirling a pencil between her fingers. “Uh, sir, did they find those bomber crews? The ones that got shot down.”

“No,” he said. “But, at least _one_ of them managed to get their bombs dropped, so we’ve got that going for us at least.”

“Wait, so they’re just… _stuck_ there?” Lena asked. “Can’t we do something about it?”

Horne cocked an eyebrow at her, frowning. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Oxton, but everything east of Brussels is Jerry’s land. We’ve got to depend on the Germans to take care of our pilots _if_ they survived the landing.”

“But… there’s _nothing?_”

“We are at _war, _Oxton,” Horne said. “We may fly and fight like civilized men up in the sky, but they aren’t idiots. No sane airman is going to expect a pickup from home.”

“Did all we could, Oxton,” Dyson said, shrugging as he smoked a cigarette.

Horne soon moved on, detailing potential operations in the future should the Germans continue pushing. It wasn’t looking good – like he had alluded to earlier, the Germans were closing in quickly on western Belgium, pushing the front line further and further back practically every day. She hadn’t been over in France long, but it was not looking good.

But, then again, Father had been over here during the Great War. He talked a lot how it looked hopeless for a long time, and it had turned out more or less alright for him. At least, discounting the loss of his arm. Still, he had kept in high spirits, or so he always said. Maybe she was worrying over nothing. After finishing their debrief, Lena and Dyson were dismissed to attend to whatever it is they wished to do with the rest of the day.

For Lena, it was mulling over the cursed letter again, trying to figure out what response, if any, was appropriate for it. She leaned back on her bunk, listening to the metal creak and groan as she read over the letter again.

“What’s that?” Dyson asked, opening up a newspaper. “Another letter from home?”

“Oh, no, it’s the same one,” she said. “Just… I don’t know. Haven’t figured out what to say back.”

Dyson nodded. “Bit late to go home. Might wanna tell them that.”

Lena sighed, staring at Father’s words. _You always have a home here with us._

She couldn’t help but wonder how true that was.


	5. The Approaching Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena continues to fly over France and the Channel, meeting more than a few obstacles along the way.

_May 18th, 1940_

The sky was orange, much like the fire that had raged from the Hurricane Lena had seen last week. Dark clouds formed an impossibly thick barrier to ascending higher, hiding who-knew-what with Horne unwilling to let them climb to angels 13. Thus, they were relegated to flying at angels 9 for this run, Lena’s second combat mission of the day. She had woken up that day to contest a flight of German 109s that were harassing the front lines, and this patrol was no different.

Except for the fact she was exhausted. Flying took a lot out of her, more than she had really realized. Lena found it hard to keep herself awake, blinking heavily with each scan of the skies. No Germans so far. If they had ever been here, they were long gone. And yet, Lena still kept searching, mostly on Horne’s insistence that Jerry was waiting to bounce on them. She glanced up at her mirror – just more endless clouds of black.

A flash of white filled the sky in front of her – a German He 112 had dived on them from behind and above, launching a mass burst of yellow-tipped tracer fire in between their formation.

“Break off!” Horne ordered. “Oxton! Get on that Jerry’s six!”

Lena needed no further encouragement, already cutting close to chase after the German. His silver-skinned plane reflected the dying light of the sun as he started to maneuver evasively to shake her off.

“109s! Three o’clock high!” Dyson reported. Yellow, red, green, white – all sorts of colored tracers filled the air, disappearing into the clouds and falling down to the idyllic French village below them. Lena angled her plane just right, sent out a burst of her own at the He 112, watching holes appear in his wingtips as thin liquid poured out of a hole she had landed close to the fuselage. Had she hit the fuel tanks? Maybe.

Either way, the holes were making his plane unstable. Lena had to break off, find more targets and help her flight. She circled around, watching a 109 closing in on Dyson. Time to intercept him. Lena began closing in on him herself, pulling forward just enough to get the lead correct before opening fire. Her rounds filled the air, peppering the 109’s wings but just not quite forcing him to abandon the pursuit. They had told her in flight school the .303 cartridge would be sufficient to deal with any enemy plane. What was going on?

The enemy 109 started performing a loop, maybe to try an Immelman? Lena pulled up as well, closely following behind him. She slowly realized he wasn’t simply pulling a loop, no, he was climbing straight up, but why? He’d stall if he kept on this. This didn’t make sense, but Lena couldn’t get the bead on him as he was weaving side to side.

It was only when she checked her airspeed that she realized what he was trying to do. He wasn’t trying to gain altitude, he was luring her into a trap. Slowly, her plane tilted backwards, her controls useless to affect the critical loss of speed as she fell into an uncontrolled tumble, the ground and sky alternating over and over. Bullets zipped past her plane, filling the air with lethal intent. Lena heard her own panicked breathing intensify seven times over with the mask as she tried to orient herself, watching the artificial horizon slide around randomly as it tried to report her position. She looked out the window, dizzying herself just trying to match up with down and attempting to remember her training. She had done this, she had recovered from stalls before.

But she had never done it with an angry German on her tail, drawing an outline of her plane with his bullets.

Each tracer that flew by seemed to have her name on it, spelling out her doom as she tried to retain control of her plane. Lena wrestled with the stick, watched her airspeed steadily increase as the altimeter dropped lower and lower. She had started at angels 9. The meter read she was approaching angels 7, _fast._

“I’m waffling!” Lena shouted out, hoping she had remembered to transmit on the radio at the same time. Maybe she could find a way to catch the wind again, so to speak, break out of the spiral.

“What did you do, Oxton?!” Horne demanded.

A bullet cracked her cockpit’s glass, taking the rear-view mirror with it. The top panel was useless for seeing out of now, with a veritable spider web series of cracks running along it to the strips of riveted metal that formed the cockpit assembly. _Okay, I can recover from this,_ Lena thought. If she could just time it right, then she would be fine. She could get back to flying straight and level, just like before. She checked the altimeter again – angels 6.

Lena waited for her plane to make another spin, applying full rudder to power out of the death spiral and back to straight flying, though far lower than she had been before. She whipped her head back, trying to judge whether the 109 was still on her tail. No sign, but without her rear-view mirror it was impossible to tell for sure. By now, the sky had grown darker with a curious royal blue hue crossing the land, only broken up by the still-black clouds above her.

“Is he still on me?” Lena asked, trying to find nebulous shapes in the darkening sky.

“He’s a flamer, what happened up there?” Dyson asked, though where he was Lena couldn’t tell.

She sighed, trying to mask her own disappointment. She had fallen for Jerry’s trap hook, line and sinker. “He led me into a stall, I should have seen it coming.”

“You’re still flying, aren’t you?” Horne asked. “Get back into the fight, Oxton, let’s go!”

Lena nodded, starting climbing back up to meet with her flight again. She didn’t spot any more Germans in the sky, but with how dark it was getting, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to see them anyway. It was getting darker with the passing minute, forcing Lena to turn on the lights in her cockpit. A dim orangeish-yellow glow filled the cockpit, and as she looked out to the encroaching night, ground-based tracers dashed up to the sky.

“Are we going to keep fighting?” Lena asked. “I can’t see any Jerry up here.”

“We should be good on fuel,” Horne replied. “Dyson, fuel?”

“Uh… I’ve got 45 minutes of fuel left, give or take a minute.”

“Oxton, what about you?”

Lena glanced over. “40 minutes, sir.”

“Right, keep searching. Jerry likes to fly bombers at night.”

Lena looked back to the sky, straining her eyes to find the familiar shapes of German planes in an unfamiliar night. Was that the flash of a 109 she saw, or just her eyes playing tricks on her? It felt like the light was doing more harm than good, reflecting her own face back at her as she tried to scan. From seemingly nowhere, another burst of red tracers zipped past them, forcing Lena to scan in vain to try and find the source. It had come from below, so whoever had fired it must have risen up to level flight.

A break in the clouds allowed a bit of light from the moon to shine through, showing a 109 painted in green-gray regalia ahead of her. The lead was practically right there – Lena immediately opened fire, a full belt of tracer rounds flying out and knocking the enemy plane right out of the sky just like that. It burst into flames as it fell, and for a moment she thought she saw a man extract himself from the burning plane.

“Good shooting there, Oxton,” Horne said. “We oughta call you Tracer, what with all of them you threw at that poor sod.”

“That about sounds like a nickname to me, sir,” Dyson chimed in.

“Well, I sure don’t mind it!”

Horne cleared his throat, ordering them back to the V formation. “Alright, that’s enough of that. Keep your wits about you. Still more Jerry out there, no doubt.”

* * *

Lena returned to base no worse for wear, claiming only the one enemy plane confirmed shot down, with four others probable. After a short debrief, Lena headed to bed, sleeping off what remained of the night. Dreams of the day’s combat swam in her head, as did the new nickname that Horne and Dyson had given her – _Tracer._ Looked like loading up with extra belts of tracer ammunition was fortuitous, and given the evening’s conditions, definitely helpful.

Her dreams slowly turned not to visions of fighters dancing with one another in the sky, but to the ominous letter she still had not replied to from Mother and Father. It had been nearly two weeks since she had gotten it, and who knows how long it had been circling around the military looking for her. Maybe they had given up all hope of receiving a reply from her?

Nothing quite compared to knowing that her parents had desperately sought her out, but thus far had been unable to find her. Maybe she should have told them the truth before she left, done something, anything but lied about what she was doing. Perhaps then, it would have been better to just rip the bandage off right then and there.

Lena overwhelmingly thought that what Father had said was a lie. Sure, there was always a home for her, but not a _home._ The RAF had changed her, made her into someone who flew to the sky and sent men sailing down to the earth, thousands of feet above the air. Sure, she could go back home, but she couldn’t go back home to her childhood. She couldn’t go back to the home where she listened, starry-eyed to Earhart’s reports of flying across the world. Where Earhart had flown over the oceans and across islands, Lena flew over the hills and far away from her little home in London.

Try as she might, Lena didn’t think she could ever go home again.

* * *

_May 20th, 1940_

Instead of flying out to meet Jerry in the air, their squadron had a new, radically different task.

Flying back to the United Kingdom.

The blue ocean almost mixed with the sky, save for blots of thin white clouds that broke up the sky every so often. Lena didn’t think they would have been going back to England so soon, and she was almost positive that it wasn’t because Jerry had decided to go home and stop invading France. Quite the opposite, really. They were advancing farther and farther into France each day, with British troops still fighting in the country to at least delay them.

“Hey, Tracer,” Dyson said, flying just next to her. “You send that letter back home yet?”

“Oh, uh, no,” she replied. “I… I didn’t really know what to say.”

“Your family lives in London, right? Hey, we could take a visit there, you and me! Talk to your parents yourself!”

Lena’s eyes grew wide, and for a split second she let go of the stick, momentarily releasing control of the plane. She recovered quickly, though, and it didn’t look like anyone was the wiser. She laughed nervously, trying to play off the panic. “Heh, well, uh… maybe. Um, I guess it depends on if we get leave or not.”

“Gentlemen, how’s about we focus on flying instead of Tracer’s little home?” Horne said. Ordered, more like, come to think of it.

The flight back to their former airbase was free of further commentary, talk of home, and without a single Jerry fighter in sight.

* * *

_May 27th, 1940_

Dunkirk.

It was name Lena would never forget in her entire life. She could barely count how many soldiers were waiting on the beach, a sea of dark brown and beige uniforms arrayed and milling about, lines extending like elongated fingers. Off in the city itself, fires raged unchecked, spewing black columns of smoke to the sky.

“Tracer!” Horne shouted. “Get that Jerry!”

She looked out over the Channel just on her left, spotting a Stuka divebomber careening for an unarmed ship. The siren fitted on the bloody thing pierced her ears, even over the sound of her plane’s own engine. Before Lena could even think to turn her plane towards Jerry, an explosion cracked the ship in two, surrounded by a massive splash of water and fire that combined. As she flew over, she saw not just men diving off the ship, but oil leaking out of it and spreading like a plague in the water.

Lena blinked, trying to reconcile the horror in front of her as she momentarily paused. The stick was suddenly stiff in her hand as she pulled up to follow the Stuka. She breathed heavily, in and out twice, calming herself before training her guns on the enemy plane. Had to aim for the wings. Not only fuel, but the pilot’s seat had armor protecting it, and the rear machine gun could prove deadly to her if she wasn’t careful. Her best course of action was to try to approach from below, that way the tail gunner couldn’t engage her.

Green-tipped tracers flew past her as she went low under the Stuka, just barely flying past her cockpit. There’d be no repeat of last week’s flight over France this time. Lena angled up and began to open fire, watching the Stuka fly past her. Her .303 rounds penetrated the wing fuel tanks, setting it on fire as it continued to cruise along. Climbing back up to level flight, Lena looked back, trying to judge of another pass was necessary. She watched the Stuka’s canopy open, revealing the rear gunner jumping out to take his chances in the ocean, while the pilot struggled to retain control of the plane.

Lena was practically close enough to give him English lessons, really. He looked up as a blazing inferno began to consume his aircraft, pulling against something inside his aircraft. Eventually, she saw the fire leech into the cockpit itself. Lena watched in horror as the German pilot banged on the canopy glass, as if he was asking her to reach out and unlock the latch from the outside, but with no options available he pulled out a pistol and shot himself. His blood splattered against the cockpit, and with no human guidance, the burning Stuka fell into the ocean.

She blinked, trying to comprehend the horror that had unfolded before her very eyes. She… she had _done_ that to him. Just as that German had attacked an unarmed troopship with hatred, so too had she ignited his plane and set him on fire. She couldn’t have been more culpable than if she had struck a match and dropped it on him. But Lena didn’t _hate_ the Germans. She just wanted them to stop invading Europe. To go _home._ Stop the violence.

A hail of gunfire broke her out of her thoughts as she looked at her rear-view mirror. An enemy He 112 had flown to her six, necessitating quick reactions. She cut to the right, tried to get him into a vertical loop, but he was smart and continued to pepper her plane with holes. This bloody thing had a _cannon_ on it, and the massive tracers blasted past her as she narrowly dodged them. She heard something metallic snap and break, looking left, then right. She had lost part of her right wing, the very tip of it snapped off by a 20mm cannon round.

“Break off!” Horne ordered.

Trying her best to do so, Lena hung to the left to head back towards England, but the 112 was still on her tail, persisting in his task to shoot her down. The loss of the wingtip was affecting her Hurricane negatively. It wanted to roll to the right, but that was the exact _opposite_ thing she wanted to happen right now.

“I lost my wing!” Lena shouted, trying to avoid receiving more cannon rounds somewhere more dangerous. “Got a bandit on my six!”

“On my way!” Dyson reported. What felt like an eternity later, she watched the 112 break off as Dyson and Horne flew in to help, but she had a new problem now.

One of the 112’s rounds had hit her fuel tank, and this was a far bigger leak than the first one she had ever gotten. She could do nothing but watch her fuel gauge steadily deplete.

“Oh no,” she muttered. “No, no, no, no! I’m losing fuel, fast!”

“Don’t panic, Tracer,” Horne said. “What’s your time?”

“Twenty-no, eighteen minutes of fuel! That’s not enough to get back!”

Horne flew close to her plane, having her rock her wings for a second to get a better look at the damage. “OK, Leonard, listen close, right? Worst case, you’ll bail out over the Channel. We can help you if it comes to that. Best case, you have just enough to make it to the shore.”

“I don’t think that’s enough!”

“It’ll have to be,” Horne declared. _“Fly.”_


	6. Eagles over London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena tries to land a plane rapidly losing fuel, while the Battle of Britain begins.

Lena let out a tension-filled breath, trying – and failing spectacularly – at keeping herself calm. Her little Hurricane was in critical condition, in no shape to fight, and barely even two miles away from Dunkirk. She looked down, making sure she wasn’t bleeding somewhere, for a sharp pain had developed in her leg. No blood on her flight suit. Nothing she could _see, _anyway. Lena could do nothing but fly in a straight line, helplessly watching her fuel gauge drop with the passing minute.

The constant reminders from Dyson and Horne that she would be fine weren’t much helping. She wanted desperately to believe them, almost did for a short moment. But every time she looked down at the fuel gauge, she couldn’t delude herself into accepting it. God, the Channel seemed to go on forever. How long _was_ this thing? As if the day’s combat over Dunkirk wasn’t enough, seeing an entire city in flames and spotting an enemy pilot commit suicide rather than burn to death just tipped the day into depressing. Granted, she couldn’t blame him. Her Enfield revolver was right there – if she _wanted _to, it’d be easy to just… put a bullet in her, like that German pilot had.

But, no, she shoved the thought out of her mind. Her situation was desperate, but not suicide desperate. Though, given how far she had to go and how little fuel she had to make the trip across the Channel with, maybe the bullet was better than trying to survive in the ocean, or attempting to safely crash-land a plane, as oxymoronic as it was. With less than a minute of fuel to go, she spotted land in the distance. Finally, England was in sight!

Just before she could get to England’s shore, she listened to her engine start to sputter. No more fuel, no more power to the engine. Slowly, it began to lose power, the propeller blades slowing down until they were nothing more but a whirligig. Only sheer aerodynamics and altitude were keeping her up now, but even that was debatable as her altimeter steadily began falling. If she hadn’t been stressed before, this was the tipping point. Green hills and yellow farmlands, once welcoming and inviting, were now deathly ill omens.

“That’s it,” Lena announced. “I’m out of fuel. Dropping out of the sky here!”

“You’ve got the altitude to bail out,” Dyson suggested. “You’re at least over land now!”

Lena glanced over at the airspeed indicator, which was rotating around and around, showing that her speed was dropping below first 150 miles per hour, then 140, and then slower and slower until she could barely even call it flying. Lena had to make a choice here – try to land, or risk her chances bailing out. She glanced first at her altimeter – angels 3 – and then the ground. Too low to risk that. That left only one choice.

“I’m going to try to land,” Lena declared.

“What?” Horne said. “Have you gone mad?!”

Lena ripped off her oxygen mask, taking a deep breath as her Hurricane began a steady descent. The only thing she could hear now was the wind as she drifted down. Trees became less of a nebulous shape, and now were nearly crystal-clear. She spotted individual farm houses in the fields, the occasional bale of hay, a lone tractor sitting in a field. Now, this close to the ground, she could see people pointing to the sky, no doubt wondering what she was doing.

Crashing. Crashing is what she was doing. If only she could tell them that. Her speed was low enough that she could lower the landing gear, then set down the flaps for landing. Though, at this point, calling what she was doing “landing” was being _incredibly_ generous. At this point, she expected her prop to slam into the ground and throw her head over heels into the ground. Lena _really_ should have written back home.

The altimeter went lower and lower. She was below a thousand feet now. Ahead of her, a line of trees presented an obstacle she had neither the airspeed or flight energy to overcome. This could very well take what was left of her right wing off, if not separate both of them entirely. As the green grass fields came ever closer, Lena braced for impact. One bounce off the ground, momentarily giving her a sense of weightlessness. Another one slammed her back into her seat, her plane shuddering with every bump it took. This plane was _not_ designed to be landed anywhere but good hard tarmac.

She opened her eyes just in time to see the trees head towards her. Not quite as fast as she expected, perhaps, but coming very rapidly nonetheless. The horrible crunch of metal against wood filled her ears as the impact threw her around, and another slam put her level with the dirt. Something snapped – must have been the prop. Her plane bounced and ground itself against the dirt, until finally, it all stopped.

Lena looked around – like she had predicted, her wings were gone, broken off and a good hundred yards away. The landing gear legs were in a similar position, and she could trace exactly where her plane had made contact with the ground itself and dragged itself to its final resting place. Lena looked herself over – no new holes, no blood, and somehow, even the phantom pain in her leg was gone. She was _alive,_ and perfectly okay following the unscheduled landing.

She laughed first, practically cried from the sheer overwhelming joy of landing safely. Her head knocked back against the plane’s headrest as she looked up, immensely glad she hadn’t been killed trying to land. Her heart was still pounding, nervous energy from trying to reckon a good course causing it to go into overdrive, but she was _alive._ _Safe._ Nothing compared to this feeling. Lena, still laughing, opened her canopy and climbed out of the plane, surveying the damage.

Which, quite unfortunately, meant this plane would never fly again.

“Tracer!” Her radio. Somehow, it was still working.

“Dyson?” Lena asked, surprised as could be. “How are you in range?”

“We followed you, you twit!” he said. “That looks like a real mess! You alright?”

Lena looked up, watching Horne and Dyson circle around her, waving at them. “Yeah, I’m alright. I think my plane’s done for, though.”

Dyson laughed, wagging his wings at her. “Looks like you hit a six on that landing, though.”

“Alright, knock it off, you two,” Horne chastised. “We’re going to get a truck to round you up, Leonard. Sit tight at your plane, yeah?”

“You got it!”

* * *

_June 5th, 1940_

“You ready, Tracer?”

Lena opened her eyes, having closed them in some strange way to mentally prepare herself for going back home. Dyson had given her a ride, taking her to London in his Humber Snipe that he professed to have bought with his own money in 1936. The car’s leather interior was immaculate, all things considered, and the ride felt relatively smooth. None of that really helped her nervousness, though. She hadn’t been home since the outbreak of war.

“I… I think I am,” Lena said, swallowing hard.

Dyson turned the car off, resting an arm on the steering wheel as he looked over at her. “Well, look at it this way, Oxton. If things go sideways, you’ve always got a family with us at the Squadron.”

Lena laughed, smiling and shaking her head. “Yeah, I guess I do, don’t I? Thanks, mate.” She looked over, smiling at him. Did his eyes always twinkle like that, as if he was up to no good?

No time to contemplate. Dyson was out of the car in a flash, with her right behind. They didn’t even bother to put their garrison caps on, no need for it when they’d be right back inside.

Lena opened the door – unlocked, as she expected – and took a deep breath. “Mum! Dad! I’m home! And, um, I’ve got a friend!”

Immediately, her parents began to stir, and she heard them head towards the front door. It felt good to be _home,_ even if she hadn’t returned as the same person she once was. Words weren’t necessary now. Their hugs told Lena everything she needed to hear. _We’re glad you’re safe, and back home._ Her father pulled away first, shaking Dyson’s hand in an immediate pivot of attitude.

“So, who’s your friend here?” he asked.

“Oh, um, this is Brendan Dyson! We’re in the same flight together!”

“Mr. and Mrs. Oxton, Leonard here is a lifesaver, I’ll tell you that much. Don’t know where I’d be without him at my side.”

Mother waved him and Lena further in, inviting Dyson to stay for dinner and tell them all about the progress of the war, especially hot on the heels of the so-called “Miracle of Dunkirk.” Father led Dyson and herself into the den, to smoke and drink with the two pilots and trade war stories, eager to discuss strategy and the goings-on of war with them. He settled into his usual chair, puffing away on his pipe.

“So, Leonard,” he said hesitantly, clearly still getting used to Lena’s new name. “Have you heard from your sister Lena yet? I was hoping you’d be able to get in touch.”

Lena nodded, slamming back a sip of brandy. “Well, yes and no. I managed to get a letter off to her, and I got one back, but… well, I think they’ve got her in Gibraltar. Maybe even Palestine.”

“Wait, I didn’t know you had a sister,” Dyson said, turning to her. “You keeping secrets from me, Tracer?”

Father cocked an eyebrow, glancing over at Lena. “Tracer?”

“Oh, that’s just the nickname they gave me. You know, just a goofy little thing. Horne gave you Spark, didn’t he?”

Dyson chuckled, shaking his head. “Oh, _please_ don’t bring that up!”

“No, it’s great! He was behind a Jerry, lines up to shoot, and all you see are sparks on the Jerry’s plane! You didn’t even get one hole in him, did you?”

For a split second, Lena saw a genuine smile on Father’s face. Maybe it was just the fun of watching Lena make her flying buddy embarrassed, or maybe it was the sort of camaraderie Lena could see every day in the squadron, the kind of close friendship that only combat brought together.

“Oh! And then again, on the ground, you thought it’d be a great idea to fix your own engine!”

Dyson’s toothy grin, could barely be contained as he stared to the floor, defeated. “You’ve really done me in now, Leonard. Your words hurt more than any Jerry bullet ever could.”

Mother called them to dinner, a simple affair of roast beef, roasted potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding. The mess hall food was good, that was certain, but nothing matched a good home-cooked meal. For a moment, Lena forgot there was ever a war going on, that she hadn’t seen horrors that would never fade away. If only for one hour, it seemed like she had finally found her place in the world, even if that place was as somebody who didn’t exist.

“Oh, it’s starting to get late,” Dyson said. “We really ought to head back to base, Oxton.”

“You’re right,” Lena muttered, looking at her watch. “Mum, Dad, it’s been great to be here, really, thank you both so much for having us.”

Father let out a puff of smoke, nodding. “Can’t stay then, huh Leonard? Shame.”

“Wish I could, but we’ve _really_ got to get back.”

Mother rose out of her seat, embracing her in a tight hug. “Stay safe up there, dear. For all of us.”

“I will, Mum. I promise.”

Father shook her hand, and after both had said their curt goodbyes to Dyson, he and Lena headed out and back into the car. The sun had fallen, and before she knew it they were driving back to base in darkness, with Dyson’s headlights being the only source of light for miles around.

“Oxton, you mind if I ask you something?”

“What?” she said, surprised considering that most of the trip so far was in silence.

“They’ve got a _lot_ of pictures of your sister there, and… well, she looks an awful lot like you.”

Lena paused, maintaining a bug-eyed poker face as she tried to come up with an answer. Good thing he couldn’t see her face in this darkness. “Twins,” she finally sputtered out. “Uh, we’re twins.”

“Oh,” Dyson said. “Yeah, makes sense. So she’s doing government work then?”

“Yup,” she lied. “Working for some general somewhere, I think. Uh, what were you going to ask?”

Now it was Dyson’s turn to pause. She saw him wet his lips, readjust his grip on the steering wheel. “Well, I was just wondering why they didn’t have any pictures of you in the house?”

She felt a bead of sweat start to roll down her face. Lena hadn’t expected this, but, well then again she was stupid enough to let one of her friends into the house. “Well, uh… I-I don’t know if there’s really an easy way to say it. Um, Father didn’t much want me to join the RAF.”

“That makes sense. But… why not keep pictures of you?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I didn’t think he’d react like _that_ to it all.”

Dyson nodded, his head just a vaguely-visible blob of black next to her. “Well, like I said. You’ve always got a home with us, Leonard.”

Lena couldn’t help but smile, knowing that even if she had to hide, at least she had _someone_ that seemed to care. “Yeah. Thanks, Brendan.”

* * *

_September 9th, 1940_

Lena’s new Spitfire was proving to be an excellent craft. It had less guns than the Hurricane she was using, but that proved to be more than fine. It turned faster, flew higher, and went faster than any other plane she had used before. These traits combined to make an incredibly deadly plane, or at least that was what Lena thought.

Still, all the Spitfires in the world couldn’t do anything if enemy bombers got through. London – her home, her _life_ – was being hammered near daily by German bombers. Lena had tangled with enemy bombers before, mostly the massive Dornier Do 17 that proved almost impossible to shoot down and the Junkers Ju 88, an equally difficult foe to face. The latter of these two acted more like an oversized fighter than a bomber, moving in ways she didn’t think bombers really should.

Honestly, the best benefit was that the Royal Air Force had wrecked German Stukas and Bf 110s that they no longer dared to appear over London’s skies. Now if only the rest of the German air force could extend the same kindness. Typically, she only ever saw bombers, but it seemed this time Jerry had decided to have his fighters stick around for a little bit. She could see an enemy 109 right in front of her. Time to go to work.

He was easy to lure into a turning fight. Foolishly, he thought he could out-turn Lena, a mistake she capitalized on. A stream of yellow tracers flew out, dotting his plane and tearing off the elevator. Quickly losing control, she watched the plane circle up and behind her, useless for actual flying. One down, who knew how many to go. This war was no longer strictly professional. It had become personal. How dare the Germans come to her home, force her family to go into hiding underground.

This was _her_ London, and it would be a cold day in Hell when she refused to fly up to defend it.


	7. The Blitz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena fights to keep her home safe from German bombers.

_September 15th, 1940_

Never before in her life did Lena think she had seen so many planes before. A veritable sea of bombers and fighters flooded the sky ahead of her, both German and friendly alike. Red, green, yellow, white and orange tracers filled the sky as she headed to intercept German fighters, watching Dyson and Horne closely. Horne had started adopting German tactics of fighting loosely, instead of flying in a tight V like the RAF had taught them. Breaking herself out of the habit of the flying V was hard, but in the past month it had proven excellent in defending against German attacks.

Right now, though, all she could focus on was the iron crosses on the planes in front of her, watching her tracers fly out and hit the wings and fuselages. Lena tracked perfectly the German pilot, watching his wing fill with holes as smoke started to pour out of his aircraft. With the wing losing aerodynamic capabilities fast, he dipped out of the sky. One down, countless more to go. Immediately, shots began to wrack the inside of her own plane. She checked her mirror – Jerry was right on her six.

Lena maneuvered swiftly, performing an Immelman in order to escape his sights, but now she was flying into the sun and couldn’t quite see if the blobs in the distance were friendly fighters, or enemy bombers. She rolled her plane around, trying to spot the German that was right behind her a second ago. Wasn’t below. He didn’t have the energy to be above her. Time to dive down, start engaging.

Her engine shuddered. _Not again,_ she thought. She had forgotten _again_ about the float valve issue, had starved her engine of fuel again. This she could recover from. Lena quickly restarted her engine, maneuvering to keep the Spitfire from heading into an uncontrollable dive as she did so. Within a second, she had gotten her engine back in working order, right back to pursuing a high-speed 109 that had zipped past her as she dove down.

One more line-up. Her plane shook as she fired the machine guns, forcing the German to evade. Had she scored a hit? She didn’t see any holes in the enemy plane as he pulled up. Time to keep on the pursuit. Lena followed, keeping a close watch on Jerry’s tail as he dodged and weaved through the air, even as what felt like thousands of bullets sailed around them. Any sort of stray burst could hit either one of them at any time, not to mention the ack-ack on the ground that spewed black puffs of smoke up at them.

As she followed the German’s flight, she began to realize he was leading her back to more German fighters.

“Spotted a wing of German fighters!” Lena reported. “Lot of them today!”

“We’ve got problems of our own!” Horne shouted. “Break off, regroup and we’ll attack as one!”

Lena swiveled her head around, finding Horne and Dyson tangling with Germans not too far away from her. She hated having to break off, especially when she was so close to confirming a kill, but she _had_ to, she reasoned. Had to join back up with her flight.

Lena begrudgingly broke off, meeting back up with Horne and Dyson just as a German fighter buzzed Dyson’s wing. Lena responded immediately, hitting his tail with a flurry of bullets that destroyed the 109’s rudder, tearing several holes in it. Another burst from Horne shot a nice new hole into his left wing, and just as quickly as the 109 appeared it broke off. Massive white tracers filled the air, defensive fire from one of the enemy bombers as it dropped its payload on London.

Lena scanned, trying to find the enemy bomber. Must have been below her. More interesting targets were at hand – namely, two 109s that were heading for them. Dyson and Horne had already spotted them, instructing Lena to take her pick. She chose the left one, banking to engage alongside Dyson. They traded tracer fire, filling the air with yellow once more as they dueled in the skies above London. On one side, Jerry was flying over London with lethal intent, while the RAF only sought to protect.

The German she was chasing was performing a classic scissors maneuver to try and shake them off, but with Lena close behind it was impossible to keep both of them away. Leno fired off a burst, closely followed by one from Dyson’s plane, and it was Dyson’s attack that broke off the 109’s wing, sending Jerry down and out of the fight. Circling around, Lena spotted Horne engaging with another 109, lighting him on fire as he sailed down. Slowly, she watched German bombers turn back as friendly Hurricanes engaged them, with no further German fighters spotted.

“Good work, gents,” Horne said. “Let’s head back to base.”

Lena began to head down, looking out at London. Spirals of smoke had started to rise up, and she could hear air raid sirens start to die down. Ruined, wrecked buildings were all over, including the part of London she recognized as home. She could feel her eyes welling up even now. How much more of this would they have to take?

* * *

Only a few hours later, and they were back up in the air. Another massive wave of German planes had been sent at London, once again crowding the skies with iron crosses and metal. She was feeling the effects of fatigue now, dead-tired from hours of combat earlier and now having to fly up again. She could barely keep her head level.

Lena spotted a German plane, breaking off to engage alongside Dyson. Before she knew it, she was on his tail, working automatically at this point. Another burst, another enemy elevator shot off. Lena didn’t even recognize the flurry of voices coming from the squadron warning of danger and engagements with enemy planes.

The sound of bullets hitting her plane quickly took her out of any haze she might have been in. She checked her instrument panel. One of the bullets had hit the oil cooling system, leading to a rapid loss of not just oil, but also beginning to heat it up. This was dangerous – if the oil got too hot, it could cause an engine failure. Alright, not horrible, but definitely less than ideal.

A shower of glass cascaded over her as more bullets impacted her plane. Involuntarily, she closed her eyes, ducking to avoid the incoming fire and swinging her plane out of the way. It felt like something hit her leg, but she wasn’t sure what. Maybe she had accidentally hit herself with the stick? Lena looked down, watching blood seep through her uniform. Suddenly, the immediacy of the situation hit her. She had been _shot._

“Oh God,” she said, finding her voice. “I… I’m hit!”

“You’ve got smoke pouring out of your wing but you look fine,” Horne said. “Rock your wings.”

Lena felt her breathing increase rapidly. “No, y-you don’t understand, I… I’m _shot!”_

“Oh bloody hell,” Horne muttered. “Ugh, can’t believe we’ve got to do this. Alright, Oxton, land and we’ll get you to the hospital, right? Keep calm, do you understand me?”

“Okay, alright,” she muttered. It felt like she had already lost all the blood in her body. She was vaguely conscious of Horne talking to ground control, alerting them she had been wounded as she began to descend. Lena tried to keep a hand over her wound, but found flying difficult, and when she drew her hand back, her palm was covered in blood.

This wasn’t good. Lena tried to keep herself even, fight through the pain, but the burning in her leg was impossible to ignore as she came closer and closer to the ground. Everything was a blur to her as she passed over London, then headed to her familiar base. Even landing proved tricky, trying to manipulate switches and knobs with a bloodied glove. She could feel herself getting weaker and weaker with the passing second.

Lena blacked out just as she applied the brakes.

* * *

She woke up, startled as she bolted upright in bed. Gone was her RAF uniform, replaced by matching white shirt and pants. She looked around – total isolation. No, no, no no _no no._ Had they found out? Was she in a jail hospital now? She ripped off the flimsy wool blanket that covered her legs, spotting bandages that had been wrapped around her right leg just above the knee. She didn’t see anything that resembled her uniform anywhere. Panic began to fill her as she looked around.

The door to her room opened, and immediately she swung her legs over the bed, intent on running. A jolt of pain shooting up her leg told her that was a terrible idea.

“Don’t do that!” an eerily familiar Scottish-laden voice said. Lena blinked, looking up to see the same nurse that had attended to her during her physical when she joined the RAF.

“Wh-where am I?” Lena asked. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry,” the nurse said. What was her name again? “You’re okay.”

“How do I know that?” she said. “I’m… I’m not going to jail, am I?”

The nurse smiled – _God,_ that smile – and tilted her head. “Well, why would you be going to jail, Mr. Oxton?”

Lena’s eyes, though still bug-eyed form the panic over potentially being caught, stared back as her heart began to calm itself. “I… well, I don’t rightly know, I suppose.”

“You pilots are always so strange!” the nurse said, laughing.

_McAlister. That was her name!_ “Oh, uh… Nurse McAlister?”

She paused, smiling again. “So you _do_ remember me! I was wondering if you did or not. What is it?”

“Uh, I was just wondering, uh… how long have I been here?”

She picked up a clipboard near Lena’s bed, flipping over a piece of paper and reading it. “No more than three days.”

“And, uh, how long until I can go back to flying?”

“Oh, that’s going to be harder. Easily another month or two.”

Lena sighed, nodding her head as she eased herself back into the bed. Two more months without flying, at _least._ Well… at least it wasn’t all bad. At least she had Nurse McAlister here.

For now at least, Lena’s secret was safe, and nobody was the wiser.

* * *

Spending time in the hospital wasn’t all bad, truth be told. She had worse beds in training, and the food was better than what they made on-base, and she had to admit the nurses that attended to her weren’t too bad to look at. _Especially_ Emily McAlister. Lena had heard the stories – out of all the nurses, only McAlister resisted the temptation to so much as even hold a pilot’s hand.

But, Lena was sure she could convince her.

After all, they _had_ met each other before. She had that particular inroad. All she needed now was to find a way to subtly tell her she wasn’t who she claimed to be. That would probably prove a little bit more difficult, but Lena had never been one to do things easily. Lena resolved to find a way to do so after nearly a month of back-and-forth flirting, a skill she noted Emily was an expert at. In that short time, she had found out nearly everything about her, from her hometown, favorite food, to the day she had started medical school.

“A few more weeks, and you’ll be out of here, Mr. Oxton,” Emily said, watching over Lena as she did her usual weekly therapy.

Lena smirked. “That’ll be grand! You know, I’ve got a secret I’ve been trying to tell you for a while.”

“Really?” Emily said, smiling back mischievously. “And what would that be? You’re in love with me?”

She felt her cheeks flare up, nervously trying to maintain an even face. _How did she know?_ “No,” she lied. “It’s, uh, it’s a bit more private than that.”

Interested, Emily tilted her head, her red hair intruding upon her face as stray locks fell out of her tightly-done bun. “Well, now you’ve got me curious. What is it, Mr. Pilot?”

Lena laughed, gesturing for her to lean closer as she took a short break from physical therapy. When she had done so, Lena leaned in close to her after making sure nobody was looking. “I’m not actually a man,” she whispered.

Immediately, Emily shot back upright, her eyes bulging wide as she slapped a hand over her mouth. She stared Tracer up and down, trying to figure out how this made sense. Finally, she blinked, leaning back to make sure not a soul could overhear. “You’re… you’re _joking,_ right? This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I think you know it makes sense,” Lena said, winking at her as she flashed a smile.

“Then you _bribed_ that doctor, you cheeky little bugger!” Emily replied, laughing.

“You don’t have to say it so loud!”

Emily couldn’t help but laugh, holding a hand to her face to stop herself from laughing too loudly. Lena immediately knew she had made a good choice. She could trust her. God, everything in Lena just wanted to reach out and kiss her right here and now.

“So, this never worked out for me before,” Lena said quietly. “But, uh… would you be open to seeing a movie with me, Nurse McAlister?”

Emily paused, and in an instant Lena’s heart dropped. This was the same look that Bethany had gotten all that time ago, back when they were on holiday in Southampton. But, instead of Bethany’s blank stare, Emily smiled softly.

“I’d love to,” she said. “But only _after_ you finish your exercises.”

“You’ve got it!” Lena said enthusiastically.

Well, hell. She’d actually gone and done it.

* * *

_December 30th, 1940_

Usually, Lena found London’s skyline lovely, almost therapeutic.

But there was no therapy, no loveliness, no tranquility to be found in the scene before her.

The smoke and orange haze of the fire before her was impossible to ignore, almost like a scene right out of Dante’s Inferno. Screams, fire engine sirens, and air raid warnings emanated and echoed, bounced off the crumbling ruins of her beloved city. It seemed like all of London had been consumed by the hellfire that the German bombers brought, with even more flying overhead. Where was the RAF? Where was Dyson, Horne? Weren’t they up there, fighting Jerry to stop them from destroying London?

Lena couldn’t help but fall to her knees in tears, trying to make sense out of an increasingly senseless world. Already, she could smell the ash of burnt wood wafting across the sky to her, the curious smell of metal overwhelming her nose and feeling as if it was poisoning the very air. She wanted to just jump up, get in the nearest truck and start driving for base, get into her Spitfire and shoot down every German plane she could see.

Maybe more than anything else, she just wanted to know if her family was okay. But, due to the confusion and mess with the bombing, Lena didn’t know if she even had a home to go to anymore, and she certainly didn’t know if Mum and Dad were still alive.

Lena wished that she knew what had happened down there, while she had been up gallivanting around in the air.


	8. Firestorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Germans unleash incendiary bombs on London.

Lena began to ran.

Where to, other than the vague promise of home, she didn’t know. The flames danced and raved in the night as she ran through old brick streets, half-conscious of the sirens and yelling that consumed London. Sprays of water hit her almost as often as they hit roaring infernos, only to pause as firefighters tried to restore the flow of water. The screams were even louder than they had been when Lena watched the fires rage on the hills.

She didn’t know how long she had been running, other than it had been far longer than she was used to. Lena reached the home she remembered, the street that it was on. Instead of finding the familiar home and brick facade she had always come home to, she found a shell of a house. Naked, burnt brick stood like a skeleton of her former home, with no trace left of her home. Lena fell to her knees, the overpowering stench of burnt wood, paper and what must have been flesh searing itself into her nose. Had her parents died in this? Did they manage to get to one of the shelters? If they had, what remained of her old life? Did _anything_ survive this fire?

“Oi! You!” somebody shouted. Lena turned to spot a fireman running towards her, grabbing her and picking her off the soot-covered ground. “What do you think you’re doing? Are you out of your mind?!”

“I need to find my parents,” she said, halfway to sobbing her eyes out. “Please, where are they?”

The fireman shook his head, glancing around. “Look, I don’t know, it’s not safe here for you. You gotta get out of here, okay? Go to the outskirts, if there’s anyone still waiting, they’ll be there.”

Lena nodded, trying to orient herself again. London looked completely unlike she remembered when it was on fire. As she headed to what she thought was the outskirts, she felt as if she were weightless, floating in the air, or perhaps treading water. It was like her chest was wrapped in the tightest jacket possible, each breath feeling like it strained against her lungs.

Nothing made sense anymore. Lena wandered through the streets, haphazardly finding her way through the blackened buildings, the unchecked fires that raged, the crowds of firemen that tried to draw water from the Thames in order to try and fight back. She had always heard stories from Father that war was ugly, not at all like the books she read growing up. Did he ever have to face a firestorm like this while over in the trenches? Lena wasn’t sure, and she definitely didn’t know if she wanted the answer.

At London’s outskirts, she found what felt like a sea of people. People in dust-covered clothes, some with massive bags, some without, and even more with bloodied hands and faces, all looking for friends, family, loved ones. The chaos was overwhelming, enough that it made Lena feel impossibly small and alone. How was she supposed to find her parents in all this madness? What if the unthinkable happened, and Jerry came back? The red afterglow of the fire illuminated everything, giving the scene a blood orange hue that matched the deepest darkest corners of her nightmares.

“Lena!”

She didn’t care that they had used her real name. It didn’t matter now who knew. All that did matter was that her parents were safe. Lena broke into a sprint, running into her mother’s welcoming, warm arms as Father wrapped his arm around her. She held them both tightly, vowing silently to never, _ever_ let go for as long as she lived. Lena considered herself lucky to know that her family was safe, settling into the comfort that only the comfort of home – even if that home was on fire – could bring.

Tomorrow… tomorrow Lena would make sure the Germans could never do this again, even if she had to take over a bomber herself and take it to every airfield in Germany.

* * *

_July 12th, 1941_

Being called into Horne’s office was unusual, especially when Lena had only gotten back to flying a few months ago and therefore hadn’t done anything to warrant a talking-to from her commanding officer. But, trying to judge what Horne wanted was about as hard as trying to derive meaning from shapes in the clouds. Lena could never tell what he wanted, much less if his gruff manner and indifferent reactions to losses maintained through the day. Sometimes, it was like he didn’t much care about squadron losses, preferring to focus on the question of “who’s still flying?”

But, Lena couldn’t speculate on him much anymore. She saluted, waiting for him to tell her why she was here, or what punishment was to befall her.

“At ease,” he said, signing off on some type of paperwork. “Oxton, AFDU wants you to do something for them.”

“Me?” Lena asked, surprised. “Wait, what’s AFDU?”

“Air Fighting Development Unit, some sort of intelligence unit. They want you to test-fly this Jerry plane they captured.”

She blinked, still trying to come to terms with the assignment. “Wait, we captured a Jerry fighter? When?”

He handed her a file, which she opened to reveal a collection of notes and photographs on a Messerschmidt Me 109. “One of Jerry’s pilots crash-landed here two days ago. I guess our mechanics fixed the thing up and now she’s flying again, which means _you’re_ going to fly it now. Evaluate the thing, tell them how it flies, usual bull.”

“Wait, I’m not some intelligence person,” Lena protested. “I-I don’t even speak German!”

“You think you gotta speak German to fly a bloody plane?” Horne asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Fuck no. Just go fly the thing and hurry back, will you? Bad enough they’re making me take you off.”

Lena looked over the photos again, dumbstruck at seeing a German plane in RAF colors with an RAF roundel on it. Should have had the Iron Cross, but… well, this _was_ their plane now. Lena sighed, heading out of the office as she curtly saluted.

Outside, she ran into Dyson, almost quite literally. “Oh!” she said, surprised for the second time today. “Sorry about that, Dyson, I didn’t see you there!”

“Ah, nothing to worry about. Heard you’re gonna be doing some special intelligence work!”

She smiled, closing up the file Horne had given her. “Oh? And how’d _you_ hear about that, you sneaky sod?”

“My ears are better than you think, Tracer,” he said, smiling back. “Listen, Horne’s going to take a dim view of you going _anywhere_ if AFDU asks for you again.”

“Is he?” Lena asked, furrowing her brow. “W-what can I do about that?”

Dyson shrugged. “Don’t know. Best to stay on his good side, I imagine.”

“May as well ask me to drop a bomb in Hitler’s bedroom,” Lena muttered. “Come on, really.”

“That’s the best I’ve got for you,” he said. “Best get going. Those intel lads don’t like waiting.”

Lena sighed, nodding and wishing Dyson a good rest of his day. Lena would have to spend the rest of hers – and maybe the next day as well – flying an unfamiliar plane with unfamiliar people surrounding her.

* * *

“Right,” Lena muttered as she climbed into the cockpit, confronted by a mess of familiar panels, scrawled over with German. “So… what’s what?”

“So, that’s your oil and lubricant temperature, we think,” an engineer said, pointing to a small panel on her right. “This here’s your propeller speed. Altimeter here – Jerry measures it in kilometers, not feet – airspeed here, and we’re not sure what this does.”

“How comforting,” Lena muttered, shaking her head.

“Look on the bright side,” the engineer said. “Fly one plane, flown them all, right? Go ahead and start it when you’re ready.”

Lena waited for the engineer to get clear of the area, and then started the engine. With a puff of black smoke, the engine began to sputter to life as the propeller turned. Slowly, she applied the throttle, and the plane began to roll forwards. Had to counteract the engine trying to wrest her to the left as she further took off, and once she gained enough speed the plane began to lift off the ground. Just like she had done thousands of times in her own Spitfire, she instinctively reached for the switch to raise the landing gear – except it wasn’t there. No, Jerry had a knob for it. Lena pulled the knob, feeling the wheels and struts form up on the wing.

So far, so good. Supposedly this thing had two machine guns and a cannon on it, but the weapons had been disabled for her flight. Simple flying, really. The 109 flew smoothly, turned excellently – really, Lena was a little jealous at how smoothly it handled. It was much better at tight turns and scissor maneuvers than her Spitfire was, and if they were right about the cannon, even packed a nice centerline punch.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t go up and spook Jerry with a copy of their own plane in RAF livery. Lena turned to head back to the airfield, still puzzling over the various German controls as she headed to land. Well, if nothing else, she had a nice test-flight, and knew exactly what the German plane was capable of now. She’d easily be able to use this in the future against German pilots.

* * *

_August 7th, 1941_

“Alright, don’t play silly buggers, Jerry’s not shooting scarecrows up here,” Horne said as they passed the Channel to head to France’s shores.

“I doubt we’ve got much to worry about,” Dyson said. “Not with Tracer flying with us!”

Lena laughed, scanning the skies for German fighters as they escorted a wing of bombers over. “Don’t go attributing _too_ much to me, Sparky,” she said. “Don’t want Jerry to start looking for my plane, now!”

The skies looked clear, and it didn’t appear that Jerry’s ack-ack had woken up quite yet to start firing at them. There was a danger inherent to flying over France, ironically the same problem Jerry had during the Battle of Britain not too long ago. Because they had to cross the Channel twice, there was often not quite enough fuel to support their bombers for long, but Jerry had bases all over France to land and refuel at, and they could choose when and where to attack.

The past few ops had been quiet, but Lena wasn’t sure whether that’d last. She could feel it – over a year of flying combat operations had given her a sixth sense about this sort of thing, the overwhelming sense that there was a German fighter somewhere. Lena looked behind her – spotting a German plane diving down on them. But, wait, something was odd about this plane.

A flash of green and white sped by her before she was even cognizant of it. She blinked, trying to track the Jerry as it buzzed them and circled back around – faster than she thought possible – for another pass.

“Whoa!” Dyson said. “Where did he come from?”

“New Messerschmidt?” Lena asked, angling herself for a gun run.

The sight of tracers flying past her clouded her thoughts, rolling out of the way of the incoming fire.

“That’s no 109!” Horne shouted.

Lena looped around, spotting Dyson and Horne tangling with the German plane – just as her fuel light turned on, informing her she was dangerously low on fuel for the return flight home.

“What do you _mean_ it’s not a 109?” Lena asked. “That’s all they’ve got now, isn’t it?”

“Less talk, more fight!” Horne replied.

“Low on fuel here,” Dyson muttered.

She sent one burst out at the German plane, watching it miss entirely. Quick scan – she spotted another handful of German fighters incoming. They didn’t have the fuel to take all of them on. Did Horne know that?

“Bloody hell,” he muttered. Well, that answered _that_ question. “Break off, break off. We’ll burn all our fuel at this rate.”

Lena sighed, evading the Germans as she flew back across the Channel. Something had to give, right? And yet, the appearance of that new German fighter shook her. That thing climbed faster and flew better than her own Spitfire.

Was she finally outmatched?


	9. Europe's Skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dyson has something to tell Lena.

_October 20th, 1941_

Waking up that morning, Lena didn’t think much would be different. She was certain they’d head up to fly over the Channel again, escort bombers up until they couldn’t and maybe tangle with the new Jerry fighters again. The reports from Horne and Squadron command were less than enthusiastic – she expected it from Horne, but seeing even the squadron commander warn that the new German planes were better than the Spitfire rattled her. For the first time, the Germans had been outflying them with better planes, and while she felt confident in her skills as a pilot, facing superior German fighters was not on her agenda.

As per usual, she and Dyson were up at about the same time, getting dressed to head out to breakfast. If the usual schedule persisted, they’d be flying at about 1 PM. He seemed different today, almost… distracted if Lena didn’t know better.

“Hey, Leonard,” he said after a while, nervously tugging at his collar.

“Hm?” she said, looking up.

“I, uh… I’ve wanted to tell you something for a while.”

Lena blinked, unsure where this was going to go. “Okay, uh… well, what is it?”

He took a deep breath, swallowing hard as if he was trying to shove something distasteful down. “Before I say anything else, you know that you’re my best mate, right?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, laughing. “I mean, we’ve been flying together for how long now?”

“Yeah…” he muttered, nervously chuckling as he rubbed the back of his head. “Alright. Well… I’ll just come right out and say it. I love you, Leonard.”

Lena paused, halfway through lacing up her boots. Had she heard him right? Was… was this really happening?

“And, I don’t mean like, as a brother, Leonard,” Dyson added, his voice shaking. “I mean… _really_ love you.”

Lena couldn’t help but inhale sharply, trying to moderate a proper response. Somehow, she felt blurting out “I’m a woman” wouldn’t much help. Neither did sitting here in silence like a statue, either, because Dyson had just put himself out there in a _very_ big way, and it wouldn’t do to leave him hanging.

“Uh…” Lena said, trying to find her voice again. “Well… I… I don’t really know what to say, Brendan.”

“I know I sort of sprung this on you,” he said. “I just… I needed to tell you before something happened.”

Lena managed to finish lacing up, pursing her lips as she put her foot down. “I… I’m sorry, Brendan, but…”

“Oh,” he said, crestfallen. “You’re… not queer like I am. No, I understand, listen, I’m-”

“No, I’m sorry,” Lena said. “I… I can explain, I promise but… I can’t do it right now. Please, we’re… we’re still friends, Brendan, but… I just have to figure out how to say it.”

Dyson looked at her oddly, furrowing his brow as his lips moved, as if the words were lodged in his throat. “I… I don’t get it,” he said. “Does that mean you’re queer or-”

“I… I can’t explain it right now, but I promise you I will,” Lena said, standing up and trying to at least let him down gently. How else was she supposed to explain that she wasn’t who he thought she was? Was there even a way to do it without revealing her secret? Could he be trusted to not report her?

Lena escaped the room and left poor Dyson there. All she could do now was hope that the rest of their day could be handled with at least some sense of normalcy.

* * *

She struggled over what exactly to tell Dyson for the rest of the day. Counter to her expectations, they were not called up to fly that day, which meant Lena now had all day to worry about what to say to her friend. She flip-flopped between wanting to tell him everything, and declaring herself stupid for ever thinking that’d ever be a good idea.

But, she had to address it at some point. Dyson had kept away from Lena as much as he could, no doubt giving her space just in case she changed her mind. But there was no way she – or Leonard, for that matter – could ever begin a relationship, much less pretend to be involved with her fellow pilot. That was as dangerous as hiding who she really was.

At the end of the day, Lena had decided that she could trust Dyson. After all, they had been flying together for over a year, if she couldn’t trust him with her life, then what did all their flying even matter? With all the bull around the service desks today, there wasn’t much time to actually talk to Dyson, which meant she had to find a way to confront the situation before dinner.

She managed to get into their room first, and for a split second, Dyson was surprised as he walked in, jumping as he opened the door. He said nothing, nervously looking around as he headed in and walked to his bed.

“So,” Lena said, almost so quietly Dyson didn’t hear her. “Uh… I’m sure you know I want to say something.”

“If it’s to tell me you’re not queer, then I understand,” Dyson said. “Let’s just drop it, alright?”

“No, I need to tell you this,” Lena said, standing up. “You deserve the truth.”

Dyson sighed, tossing his field blouse on his bed. “Truth about what, Oxton?”

Lena took a deep breath, steeling herself. Either she was trusting him with everything, or her role in the war was ending right here and now. “I _am_ queer,” she declared. “But not for men. I’m not who I said I was, Dyson, because I’m not actually Leonard Oxton.”

He stared at her, confused. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m not a man,” Lena confessed. “I’ve been pretending to be a man ever since I joined the RAF. The real me is Lena Oxton, still from London, still the same pilot you know. Just… not queer for men.”

She felt the words hang in the air, as Dyson struggled to come to terms with them. After all, why wouldn’t he? He had just been told that, one, his flying mate wasn’t actually a man, and two, he had fallen in love with a woman. Lena imagined it would be much the same if she had found Emily wasn’t actually a woman. She sighed, apologizing as she sat on her bed.

“Why’d you want to join up?” he finally asked.

“Huh?” What kind of question was that? Seemed out of nowhere to her.

“Why did you join the RAF?” Dyson asked again.

Lena paused, sighing again. “Well… Father always said the world could use more heroes. So… I suppose that’s why. I didn’t want to just sit at home, working in some cushy office. Not when I could have done something.”

Dyson said nothing, slowly nodding. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I… I guess this makes us even.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I’m queer, you’re not a man. You and I, we’ve got some right dangerous secrets, don’t you think?”

Lena laughed, surprised she had even glossed over that. “Yeah. I guess so. You won’t report me, will you?”

He looked at her, cocking an eyebrow as if to ask if she was serious. “You really think I’d do that for the Tracer that’s saved me from how many Jerries now?”

She looked over, and like nothing had even changed from that morning, Dyson was flashing his usual goofy smile at her. Well, if nothing else, she had made the right choice in trusting him. He’d never go against her, and she’d never turn him in. So long as nothing crazy happened, they’d be able to make it through this war fine.

* * *

_November 7th, 1941_

Things had only gone up for Lena since that October day. Her relationship with Emily was practically blooming, with everyone in the squadron wondering how Leonard had been able to get herself involved with the local nurse that never gave a second glance to any other pilot of ground crew, and knowing Dyson had her back was just the icing on the cake. And now, with new Spitfires with Hispano cannons, it was time to bring the fight back to Jerry.

As usual, Jerry came out in force with enough 109s and 190s to make everyone worried. Lena had done this song and dance with Jerry before. The 109s liked to attack from above and behind, buzz the trailing plane and knock him out before they started the main attack. Then, the 190s could swarm them, overwhelm the flight with too many targets to deal with. She had to admit, it wasn’t a half-bad idea. Still, Lena had caught on to their tactics, knew how to deal with them.

The first 190 came into view, buzzing her so closely Lena could practically count the tiny RAF roundels painted on his fuselage. Lena quickly began a chase, cutting close to get on his tail even as tracers began to fill the sky around her. She could hear the reports from Horne, Dyson, Lee over in the other flight, all calling out Jerries that were heading out and noting their positions. Even with the new Spitfires, they didn’t have much more fuel than they did before, and that remained a constant worry for her.

Lena opened up first with the machine guns, following up with a burst from the cannons once she had gotten the range right. But, just as she let off on the burst, she heard a solid _ka-chunk_ coming from her right. She looked at her wing, confused. What had happened? That wasn’t the right noise that should have come from her guns. She couldn’t think too much about it now, though – had to keep firing on Jerry, at least knock a hole into him.

He performed a classic corkscrew, trying to lure her into an energy fight that she knew fully well her plane wouldn’t be able to win. Lena headed to the right, cut off his climb before he could escape her gun range and let off a burst just as his wings passed in front of her. With another _ka-chunk_ she watched the 190’s wings rip off right in front of her. _Another successful kill._

Lena turned to head back to her flight, swooping to help Horne out with a 109 that had gotten on his six as he was chasing a 190 of his own. After checking to make sure nobody else was in dire danger, she lined herself up behind the enemy plane, ready to let loose a hail of 20mm bullets.

But, instead of firing, her guns just clicked.

Something had gone wrong. Her cannons were jammed, or broken, or _something_, but clearly not operational in some way. She knew she hadn’t run out of ammunition, the bloody thing had a 60 round drum magazine. That just left a jam as the only possible conclusion. Well, hell, she couldn’t exactly climb out of the plane and fix this in the air, so back to the machine guns it was. Lena started firing again – this time with the .303s instead of the cannons – watching the tracers fly out and adjusting her aim properly. The rounds merely bounced off, or when going into the wings, merely just tore inconsequential holes in the plane’s skin.

Either way, it looked like it was enough to spook Jerry enough for him to break off. Lena could only watch, having run dangerously low on fuel as Horne ordered them to fly back across the Channel. Well, at least they had something good going in their favor – between them, they had downed four German planes, another three probable. Lena would be able to add another iron cross to her plane when she got back.

“Hey, Tracer,” Dyson said as he flew close to her. “What was up with that last Jerry? Felt the cannons were unsporting?”

“No, bloody things are jammed, I think,” she said. “I couldn’t get them to fire.”

Horne scoffed. “Then don’t hold the trigger so long, and ask the armorer to take a look at the thing. One of those erks probably messed something up, those absolute lugs.”

“Alright, then,” Lena muttered. “Not sure if it’s that, though. They didn’t fail at the same time.”

“Who cares?” Horne replied. “It’s not working when it bloody well should be. I’m going to give one hell of a talking to if they keep making our ops ropey like this.”

“I don’t think the erks are to blame here, sir,” Dyson said. “My guns have been kinda spotty too, now that I think about it.”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Oxton,” Horne said. “Don’t hold so long on the trigger.”

Lena checked her gauges as she settled in for the flight back to England. Everything looked normal. She didn’t spot any holes in her wings, but just to make sure she asked Dyson to check while she rocked her wings. All clear there. He asked her to return the favor, and other than a small hole near his elevator, Dyson’s plane looked fine. Horne’s plane, despite being chased by a 190, was also free of holes.

If nothing else, at least they were still flying, and flying well.


	10. Aces in Exile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena flies with a new Spitfire, but the skies over France are more dangerous than she remembers.

_February 2nd, 1942_

Lena wasn’t sure how many times they had made this trip.

The flight over the Channel had become routine, regular even, the sort of clockwork in and out that she had come to expect. By now, they were well-familiar with the fuselage insignia of the two German wings assigned to defending German-occupied France. The regularity of Jerry’s intercepting fighters almost made it so they could recognize individual planes, giving them nicknames just as creative as the ones they gave each other.

And, like clockwork, here came the planes of Jerry’s 2nd Fighter Wing to contest them. Lena knew mainly because each plane had a shield painted on it just below the cockpit glass, with a red R inlaid within it. Looked primarily like 109s today – Lena wondered where Jerry’s 190s had gone. Maybe they were somewhere else. All Lena had to focus on was flying.

“109s, ten o clock high!” Dyson reported. Looked like Jerry was keeping to his usual tricks. Coming in from the sun, trying to overwhelm them. Well, two could play this game.

Lena went straight to full throttle, outrunning one of the German planes that was diving upon her. A short Immelman should be enough to get on his tail. Assuming her guns held up, she could knock this 109 right out of the sky. Looked like her angle was good, and she had made sure the ground crew double-checked her guns to make sure they were operational before taking off. Moment of truth. Lena shot a short burst with her machine guns, confirming she had the range right. Another burst with the cannons, and almost immediately a trail of smoke began to emanate from the 109. She must have hit something critical. Either way, he was evading out of the way.

Lena spotted a hole in his fuselage. His ability to fly was hampered, and so Lena moved on to the next target. Horne had a plane on his six, which Lena moved to intercept. Horne had a German plane in his sights, firing his guns and setting him alight.

“You’ve got one on your six!” Lena said.

“Yeah? Well do me a favor and shoot him down, will you?”

_Well, no need to be so rude about it,_ Lena thought as she settled in behind the German plane. Another burst from her guns, but she was shooting high. Looked like this Jerry wouldn’t sit around and wait for her to get another good pass on him.

Lena recognized the maneuver he was pulling, breaking across her flight line. She could react to this – a barrel roll ought to put her in the right place to get back into the fight. A rushing wave of air rocked her plane – looked like Jerry’s 190s _had_ come out to play after all. Dyson and Horne’s voices got lost in her own as all three of them reported on the appearance of German Focke-Wulf 190 fighters. Each one spewed green-tipped tracers at them, lighting up an already bright sky.

One of the rounds hit her, clipping off part of her wing. Thankfully, it wasn’t serious enough to force her to head back home, but it would be a perpetual concern. She scanned, looking for the offending plane. Too many in the air – she couldn’t quite track which one had fired the shot. Lena maneuvered around, engaging with a 190 that was trying to roll to meet Dyson.

This one looked like he had a good idea of what he was doing. Lena fired once, watching the tracers hit the 190. Holes appeared all over the plane, and she could have sworn she saw some kind of liquid start flying out from the enemy plane. Perfect. Might have hit the oil, or even a fuel line. A single cannon burst ought to light him up.

_ Ka-chunk._

Lena muttered under her breath. _Not again._ Lena shook her head. Alright, time to resort to just the machine guns. She didn’t like it, especially given the indifferent response most German pilots had to begin shot at by the .303s, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter. She could spot the red and green tracers shooting an outline of Dyson’s plane, as he asked for any help he could get. Lena did her best to aim for the fuel, try and spark a fire. At this height, she wasn’t sure if that was guaranteed.

Just as she started to doubt the usefulness of it, the enemy 190 lit up like one of Father’s cigars, breaking apart as it began to lose altitude and the pilot opted to jump out.

“Bloody hell!” Dyson said. “You’re a lifesaver, Leonard!”

“Anytime, mate!”

Lena found her aircraft buzzed again, this time by a 109 that was circling back for another pass. Lena began to angle herself to catch him, even as Horne was ordering them to break off and return home due to low fuel. _Just one more kill,_ Lena thought. _All I need._ One more downed Jerry bird was one more they’d have to replace, one less they would have next time they came back.

On the minus side, she didn’t have her cannons operational. But, she had a _great_ lineup for this incoming 109. She let forth a burst with the machine guns, watching the tracers sail into the canopy and almost certainly killing the pilot, if not at the least causing him a great amount of distress. If nothing else, she was sure she had knocked out something of importance. Just another potential mark to put on her plane.

“Come on, lads,” Horne said. “Wrap it up, we’re out of here.”

Lena dived back to meet level flight with Horne and Dyson, performing another quick wing check. Other than the tip that had gotten clipped off, her plane was relatively fine. Maybe a few more 8mm bullet holes than before, but still flyable.

“Oi, Tracer,” Dyson said, flying over her to take his place in the formation. “You’re my best mate, you know that?”

“You can be my wingman anytime!” Lena replied, smiling wide.

“Would you two knock it off and keep scanning? We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“Jerry broke off, didn’t he?” Dyson asked. “I don’t think he’s-”

Before he could ever finish the sentence, Lena looked to her left, watching a 190 dive down on him. As if in slow motion, she watched an improbable amount of bullets fill Dyson’s plane, immediately setting it alight and tearing off the wings. She could only watch helplessly as both planes dived down, strips of metal and chunks of landing gear falling off Dyson’s Spitfire as it dropped out of the sky.

“Brendan!” she shouted. “I’m going after that Jerry!”

“Don’t you dare!” Horne yelled back. “He’s bloody _gone,_ Oxton! You don’t have the fuel to chase that plane! If you break off, I’ll court-martial you if you aren’t captured by Jerry!”

Lena shook her head, heavy and labored breaths flooding her mask as she tried to hold back tears. Why her, why Dyson? Everything in her wanted to start chasing, shoot down that Jerry and take revenge. In the back of her mind, she knew that it was a lost cause. Horne was right – not enough fuel to take on another fight, and even if she shot him down, she was facing a crash-landing either in German-occupied France, or in the Channel, and neither one was a great option. She stiffened herself up, tensing all her muscles in her body, and then attempted to relax them to get back to flying.

None of them were supposed to _die_ over here.

* * *

Lena couldn’t help but feel tiny, alone, and impossibly overwhelmed with every emotion possible. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Desperate rage. All colluded to make sitting in Horne’s office, a conspicuously empty seat next to her, positively mind-numbing.

“…so, in all, a good show over France today,” Horne said as she began to refocus on what he was actually talking about. “I’m going to mark seven Jerries killed, another five probable. Does that sound about right to you, Leonard?”

She blinked, hesitantly drawing a breath. “What can you possibly mean by _good show_, sir? Dyson got _killed_ up there.”

“I know it’s tough, lad, but despite that we still had success. We-”

_“We lost Dyson!”_ she yelled, throwing her notepad on his desk, which scattered the numerous trinkets and unimportant papers he perpetually kept on top of it.

Horne sat like a statue, regarding the outburst more with indifference than anything else. Finally, he sighed, sliding the notepad back over to Lena as he folded his hands together. “Mr. Oxton, do you think I’m unaware of Mr. Dyson’s death?”

“It doesn’t seem like you bloody _care_ about it,” she shot back.

“I prefer to look on the bright side of things,” Horne said. “Just because I didn’t react like you did doesn’t mean I don’t care about losing him. Brendan… Brendan was a good man.”

“Looking on the _bright side_ doesn’t mean you have to ignore the fact he died,” Lean said.

“Here’s the thing you don’t understand, Mr. Oxton. I mourn every man in this squadron we’ve lost. I’ve worked with a lot of them before, and each pilot in this unit is someone I hope sees the end of the war. We’ve been losing pilots every day – either shot down over France, or going to the hospital – and it pains me every time to know that sometimes when we take off, it might be the last.”

She sighed, shaking her head. Bit daft of her to believe Horne was getting sentimental _now._ “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t quite buy that, sir.”

“I don’t care if you buy it or not, Leonard,” Horne said. “It’s the truth. Look, I know he was a good friend of yours, and I can feed you the same bull line that the old man’s going to give me when I hand him the report on his death, but don’t mistake my outlook for not caring.”

Lena nodded, letting out a slow breath. “Alright. I suppose I can do that.”

“That’s all I ask, Leonard.” Horne returned to jotting down notes, no doubt to put in his report for the squadron. Slowly, Lena took her notebook back, desperately missing Dyson right about now.

* * *

_February 6th, 1942_

Attending Brendan’s funeral was a sobering experience. The event had been moved inside for about an hour as rain prevented them from continuing the ceremonies at the gravesite. She remembered the visitation, offering her condolences and kind words to Dyson’s parents, had told them that her son was one of the best men she had ever flown and fought with.

And they had told her that Brendan talked about her so often, meeting her in person was almost like meeting a real-life hero. Lena had answered their questions as best she could, hid the stories she had of the two of them getting into trouble, and restricted herself to happier stories. After all, nobody wanted to hear the story of how he had been shot down in flames, his plane swatted out of the sky like an annoying fly. Doubly so when they weren’t even burying an actual body, just setting down a small plaque in a field for him.

Lena wondered if Jerry would ever return the remains to them, so they could at least give him a proper burial. If nothing else, he deserved that. Something had changed, and she wasn’t sure what she could do about it. It wasn’t the people she was around, no, they had all lost something, especially those who lived in London. What the change was, she couldn’t really understand. Maybe it was her.

She remembered seeing the posters around London, when she had been preparing to leave for the funeral. “Keep Calm and Carry On,” they said, even though the ruins of London persisted to this day and the occasional Jerry bombing run wrecked the streets once more. It had been less than a week since Brendan had passed, but it was like he had never left at all. She always had to stop herself when she headed back into her room at base, resist the urge to tell him she was there and say hi to him.

Maybe this war was doing something to her. The only comfort she had was knowing Emily was close by, a warm, comforting shoulder to lean on when it all was too difficult to bear. Lena couldn’t help but feel that she was overbearing with her, always worried that someone would find something out and then they both would be at risk. And yet, every time Lena had her doubts and worries, Emily was always able to calm the disquiet in her heart, remind her what mattered in the world.

Lena often wondered if Dyson had seen that same thing in her. Well after the funeral, she and Emily danced together in their hotel, trying to find some way to extract joy out of this terrible, terrible situation. The rain pattered against the window as Lena stared out of it, leaning her head against Emily’s shoulder as they slowly bobbed to the music. It reminded her far too much of taking bullets to the wing.


	11. Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena heads to France once more, but the dangers she faces are from more than just German pilots.

_July 7th, 1943_

On one hand, flying had become so commonplace and regular to Lena that the only thing she became conscious of was aligning her guns properly. Credit where credit was due, the new Griffon engines were far more powerful than any of the Merlin engines that the previous Spitfires had used, and even better armed, too. Gone were the .303 machine guns, replaced instead by 20mm Hispano cannons that actually _worked_ for once and .50 caliber machine guns. In all, with the new engine, the Spitfire was back on equal footing with Jerry’s planes.

Today, she was well over France, flying with Horne and Fisher, the latter of whom she had remained friendly with but had never gotten as close to as she had with Dyson. How could she? He wasn’t the same as Dyson. Sure, he was a decent guy, personable enough, but he didn’t have the same energy that Dyson did, nor the same attitude towards bull. To him, every ritual demanded on the parade field was necessary practically everywhere, leading to him saluting her for virtually no reason at all.

She couldn’t much think about it, however. Jerry was in the air, ready to contest them once again. Lena was right in behind a 109, watching it spew out red tracers into the sky at a plane from another flight. Just like she had done thousands of times before, Lena angled her guns and started shooting, sparking a fire in the enemy 109.

“Another one down!” she cheered.

“Oxton!” Fisher yelled. “190 on your six!”

The call came too late for her. She glanced around, spotting her left wing rapidly breaking off right before her very eyes. Immediately, her plane began to spiral having lost a rather critical structural component. More bullets rained down on her, and she heard something else shear off. A check in her mirror revealed her tail was gone.

“I’m going down!” Lena said. “My wing and tail are gone!”

“I see you!” Horne replied. “Bail out, Tracer! Bail out!”

Lena struggled against the stick, trying in vain to keep her plane level. No use – with only one wing and a rapidly approaching ground, she had no choice but to bail out. Lena reached with all her might to ensure she had everything on her. Pistol, check. Parachute was always on her back. Just in case, she had a survival ration tin in her pocket. Had to be enough.

She could see the ground on its way. She was far from calm, her breathing rapid and eyes wide. Every movement felt like it was taking everything in her to do. Had to bail out now. Lena popped open the canopy, with her following suit out of the plane. Immediately, the instant rush of wind slammed into her as she escaped the cockpit, and within mere seconds she and her plane had separated. She was freefalling, sailing down to the ground as she watched her plane lazily float away.

Lena tugged on the parachute cord, another shock slamming her body as the parachute deployed. The Jerry that had shot her down was circling her, having slowed down to confirm the kill. Well, why wouldn’t he? He didn’t have to worry about fuel like Lena did. She watched his plane circle her, and for a moment, he locked eyes, saluting. Confused, Lena saluted back. In an instant, he was gone.

Looking down, Lena realized she had forgotten her map in the panic. Where was she? Obviously over France, but she had already forgotten what part of the country they’d be operating over. Her French was terrible – there was almost no way she’d be able to find her way to safety or enlist the aid of the French. She had heard the rumors – a lot of French hadn’t quite forgiven the British for virtually abandoning them. But it wasn’t like they had any choice, Lena reasoned.

Did she had the card with her? A lot of pilots had a little card that had French written on it, telling civilians they came across who she was just for this kind of situation. Well, wouldn’t do much to check now – if she was right, the thing might fly out and be lost to the wind, and then she’d _really_ be in trouble. The thought crossed her mind that not every French civilian she came across would be willing to help. Surely there’d be some who thought it would be better to turn her in to the Germans. Lena couldn’t help but think of home and Emily as she descended down to the bocage of Normandy. Or, at least, she _thought_ it was Normandy. She couldn’t really tell.

Maybe she should have paid just a little bit more attention to her geography lessons.

* * *

Her landing, quite unintentionally, had her become one with the trees. For a split second, she was afraid the static lines would wrap around her neck, but she was lucky. She was only caught in a tree. Lena drew her knife, freeing herself from the branches and dropping ungracefully on the ground. It had been early evening when she was shot down, and by now, night had fallen. She could hear German being spoken in the night, followed up by footsteps and barking dogs. No time to take in the countryside.

She ran, where to she didn’t really know. She thought she had spotted the coast on her way down, but in the confusion of cutting herself down and starting on her run to the shore had gotten her turned around. Did she have her compass? No, of course not. Couldn’t find the English-to-French help card in this darkness either. Lena had to rely on the stars – if any of them were out tonight – to navigate her way around.

Lena flinched every single time she heard a truck drive by, fearful it was a German patrol ready to pick her up. The German she had heard earlier was fading, but the sound of barking dogs wasn’t. Lena looked up to the sky, spotting nothing but darkness. Clouds must have moved in. That’d make trying to get to the shore difficult. Hell, what was even her plan if she _did_ make it there? Lena didn’t know how to sail a boat. Her French definitely wasn’t good enough to get someone to give her a ride over to England.

Well, she’d just have to worry about that later. Lena dived into a culvert, drawing her pistol and silently checking to make sure it was loaded. Thankfully, it was. She heard German above her, two voices. It didn’t sound like they knew she was there. They seemed oddly relaxed. Lena kept herself quiet, hoping they’d pass without incident. After some back and forth conversation, one of them tossed a cigarette down near her.

She heard a car pull up, with a far more excited voice filling the air. More back and forth conversation, followed by the sound of the two Germans jumping into the car, it sounded like. It peeled off with a crunch of rubber and dust, leaving Lena alone once more. She waited, cautious just in case Jerry came back. It didn’t look like they’d be circling back around to here, though.

Lena crawled out of the culvert, started to run again. God, she hoped one of these farmhouses had something to offer help. The clouds moved out now, provided some moonlight for her to navigate by. Lena tried to jump over a fence, but given the dilapidated nature of it, it was more accurate to say she crashed into it and tumbled over into the field that it used to protect. She had to get inside. Couldn’t keep running out in the open forever.

She grabbed the handle to one of the farmhouse’s doors. Given it was so dark inside, trying to look in was useless, and so she didn’t know if anyone was asleep. She hoped they didn’t have a weapon – far be it a fitting end to her war to be shot by a French civilian on her way to get home. The door suddenly gave way – definitely wasn’t unlocked. She fell inside, again rather ungracefully as her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness. She thought she heard a creak.

“Hello?!” Lena called out, only to be met with silence. She drew her revolver again, aiming it at shadows. Had her heart always sounded this loud, or was the stress getting to her? Slowly, she gained vision, was able to see that the deadly threat that terrorized her… was a grandfather clock that had stopped working, perpetually paused on 8:47. Lena sighed, lowering her revolver. Of _course_ it was something stupid.

Lena got herself off the floor, dusting her uniform off. It didn’t look like anyone was here. Maybe she had lucked out, and she wouldn’t have to explain to a French farmer, with all seven words she knew in French, why she was in his house in the middle of the night. She moved to close the door, but something was… _odd._ It looked like it had been kicked in at one point. Why would someone do that?

The thought crossed her mind to try and sleep, but the unsecure door and uncertain position she was in made her reconsider. Lena headed into what must have been the bedroom, deciding it would be better to wait the night out in there rather than the main room. Sitting on the bed, she took her knife out and opened up the survival tin, revealing a ludicrous amount of barley sugars, chewing gun wrapped in cellophane, malted milk tablets in some kind of waxed paper, and what were nebulously referred to as “energy tablets.”

Lena flipped the lid over, which detailed the “Dinghy Ration” which she didn’t have. She didn’t see anything that looked like water purifying tablets in here. It said that the energy tablets should be taken only on instructions from an officer. Well, _she_ was an officer. What did that mean then? Lena put the tin down, picking up the energy tablet carton to read the instructions on it by moonlight.

The carton didn’t offer much more. It only said to be opened on instructions from the officer in command. Well, _she_ didn’t see any other officers around. On the bottom, it told her the tablets stimulated physical and mental reserves, would help her overcome feelings of fatigue, stave off depression, low spirits and apathy, ward off sleep, and as an added bonus, promote keenness and “will to survive.”

Whatever that meant.

The carton further said that if conditions were “very severe” or there seemed little hope of holding out for more than a few hours, then to start them immediately. Alright, well, this seemed pretty easy. Lena didn’t expect a Bristol Blenheim to land outside this tiny farmhouse and pick her up. She unfolded the thin cardboard where someone had affixed an “Open Here” sticker, pulling out a wad of cotton. Each tube was wrapped in clear, thin plastic – maybe more cellophane.

Lena decided there was no better time to take a few of these than now. As they dissolved in her mouth, she wondered how the pills were meant to stop her from being tired. A few minutes later, she got kicked with what felt like a jolt of electricity, suddenly far more alert than she had ever been and able to hear every little sound that came from within the farmhouse. She could probably hear a few from outside, too.

Time seemed to go by fast. The night went on, each ticking hour making the scene darker and darker. She suspected it to be just beyond midnight when she heard a truck approach the farmhouse. Two – no, three – voices spoke to each other in German, followed up quickly by the clattering of what sounded like weapons being prepared to fire. Lena heard what sounded like a command, followed up by boots stomping up the wooden deck just outside the house.

The boots paused, the young German voice turning back to ask something. There was a reply, but Lena couldn’t hear it. She slid herself under the bed, moving as quickly and silently as she could, hoping that whoever was searching this house wouldn’t think to look under it. God, she felt like a child hiding from her parents. But what other choice did she have? If she tried to fight, the others outside – Lena was certain there was more than just three total – would no doubt rush in, and then what would she do?

_“Hallo?”_ called the young German, the door creaking as he stepped in. She heard the wooden floors groan as he stepped onto them, his weight shifting and betraying his position with every step. With a sudden sharp intake of breath from the German, she heard something metal knock against wood. The German laughed nervously, apparently relaxing a bit. He continued to search, stepping with a decidedly casual air to his feet into the room she had been hiding in. Lena hoped her beating heart wouldn’t alert him to her hiding place.

_“Hast du was gefunden?”_ someone from outside called.

The German in the room with Lena sighed, turning around. _“Es ist-”_

Why did he pause? She saw his boots swivel in place, picking something up on the table next to the bed. _Wait, no,_ Lena remembered now. She had put the tin’s lid there while she read the contents of it, had forgotten to put her survival ration away. Sweat practically streamed down her face. Why was she so hot?

_“Wir haben diesen Sektor letzte Woche geräumt, oder?”_

_ “Ja, warum?”_

The German stood still, no doubt contemplating the tin he was holding in his hands. Lena kept her breaths still, not daring to let even a small amount of air out, lest the German find her. She could see it now – he would no doubt shoot her first, then drive his bayonet into her heart. God, just contemplating it was terrifying. She could feel her hair sticking to her brow as she kept herself still under the bed. How was she sweating this much?

_“Schon gut,”_ the German muttered, tossing the tin’s lid to the floor as he stomped out. _“Alles klar! Lass uns weiterfahren, mir gefällt's hier nicht.”_

The truck’s engine started back up, fading away as it drove off. Once she was sure it was gone, Lena let out a relief-filled breath, trying to normalize her breathing. She was safe now.

Lena was sure she had a guardian angel watching over her.


	12. Maquisards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena plots a way out of France.

Lena didn’t move for another hour after the Germans had left. She was sure that it was some kind of ruse, a trick they were playing on her. But, she couldn’t stay in this farmhouse forever. She had to keep moving. The morning would bring more activity, more Germans out on patrol, no doubt. She had to find some way to get back home, she wouldn’t let herself get captured and spend the rest of the war in a German POW camp.

She dropped another energy tablet into her mouth, if only to keep herself awake. The stress of hiding from the German had taken a _lot_ out of her, and Lena was sure she’d need all the energy she could get if she wanted to keep running. She carefully made her way out of the farmhouse, trying to move both quickly and stealthily at the same time. It looked clear outside, apart from the visible tire tracks that told her the Germans had been here not too long ago.

Lena started to run again, heading for an uncertain sanctuary. Hopefully. Without a map or a compass, she had no idea if she was going to the coast like she had planned, or deeper and deeper into German-occupied territory. Hell, for all she knew she was running right for Germany itself. Her journey took her through the farms of France, interrupted by thick hedges that proved impossible to climb over, and across old dirt roads marked by heavy tire tracks and tank treads. She was certain there’d be no help at this hour, not with the country still asleep.

Her confused sprint left her heading aimlessly across the country, panting and wheezing as dawn began to break on France. She had already expended the full tube of energy tablets by the time morning arrived, not inclined to see what happened if she took more. As predicted, the morning brought more activity from not just the French farmers and ranchers, but the German military as well. She dove to the side of the road more than a few times when she heard the tell-tale sound of an approaching convoy, most passing by without incident.

She checked her watch – it was nearly 8 AM by now. Lena didn’t think herself anywhere _near_ the coast. If she was a downer sort of spirit, she’d think that all hope of rescue was lost. And yet, every time she went to think of a plan to get back home, she steadily lost confidence in the venture. How stupid she had been. Why did she ever think that she could get home just by boat-hopping her way back to England?

Her legs felt like they were on fire, and the heat of the summer day was beating her down constantly. She needed water, but couldn’t find a source clean enough to use. The sweets and chewing gum she had could only sustain her for so long. Another convoy began to approach. Lena headed to the ravine again, cursing her luck. Her RAF uniform was positively ruined at this point, marred with dirt and mud and grime from constantly hitting the ground.

The time, the convoy stopped, followed up by the sound of doors slamming shut and rifles being readied.

_“Wir wissen, das Sie da sind.”_

Lena didn’t know much German, but judging by the sound of slings knocking against rifle stocks and boots crunching on the dirt, she guessed that probably meant “We caught you.”

_“Komm’ raus! Jetzt!”_

She sighed, holding her hands up as she got out of the ravine. In front of her, she saw four Germans in gray uniforms, with a fifth one standing in the middle smoking a cigar that wore all-black, his peaked cap displaying a prominent skull. The officer – she assumed he was one, anyway – also bore a Nazi armband on his left arm, waving her up.

Reluctantly, Lena walked towards them. As she expected, the Germans didn’t let up on their aim for a second. The officer looked her over, puffing away on his cigar.

“Ah, a pilot,” he said in accented English. “You must be one of the ones we shot down yesterday, yes?”

He gave out some kind of order in German. A soldier on her left slung his rifle behind his back, moving to her side and leaning down to pat her leg. Nervous energy filled her. If they discovered she wasn’t a male, what would they do? Shoot her? Imprison her somewhere? Or use her as some kind of propaganda device? She couldn’t fathom her fate, driving her anxiety through the roof.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of brown. Was it somebody passing by? That didn’t make sense. She looked around, confused as wisps of smoke from the officer’s cigar drifted by her face. The soldier was patting her leg even more harshly now, drawing extremely close to her torso. There was a certain tension in the air, but she didn’t know where it was coming from.

Suddenly, a group of people with rifles and submachine guns rose up from the fields, opening fire on the Germans. Before she could even register the act, the soldiers had fallen, lying on the dirt road. The people she had seen earlier approached, weapons drawn as the Germans coughed and sputtered in their last dying breaths. One of the beret-wearing people lowered his weapon, approaching her.

“You are the pilot, yes?” he said in French-accented English. “Welcome to France, _mon amie.”_

Lena stared at him, blinking. “Uh, right… um, it’d be nice to get back to England. Can… can that happen?”

He nodded. “Of course. We are _maquisards,_ anything is possible.”

A shot rang out, making Lena jump. One of the… what had they called themselves? _Maquisards?_ One of them had shot the officer again, working the bolt of his rifle and ejecting a spent casing. The lead one gestured to the vehicle the Germans had been using, climbing into it and taking the driver’s seat.

* * *

Lena’s journey back to England went first through southern France, ironically enough. She was apparently the last pilot to be let through their underground contacts, since their primary link with the United Kingdom, Nancy Wake, was also on her way out due to having an outrageous 5 million franc bounty on her head, taken out by the Gestapo of course. The entire way, all evidence of Nancy Wake’s work was being destroyed. Burning documents, destroying items, even sabotaging a wireless set had to be done at the outposts they passed by. At each one, the French resistance fighters there only had to take a look at Wake’s face to understand the reality that was befalling them now.

The two separated just outside of Spain, where Lena boarded a boat clandestinely provided by friendly Spanish contacts that would take her to England. The little boat proved hardly seaworthy, and she thought they would be discovered by German naval patrols almost every single time they passed close to land. What felt like days later, accompanied by more than a few of her remaining RAF survival rations, Lena finally managed to arrive back in England.

Immediately, she was debriefed by Command, asking where she went, who captured her if anyone, and what kind of contact she had with people. Other than the terrifying encounter with Jerry in the farmhouse and on the road, she had successfully evaded capture. Apparently, the _maquisards_ had confirmed this as Nancy Wake made good her escape from France, meaning Lena could now return to fighting.

After a well-deserved break, of course.

* * *

She went first to Mother and Father, who had been eagerly awaiting her return with Emily. All three of them had closely followed the news and military reports, worryingly watching and waiting. Like she had expected, Father and Mother desperately tried to convince Lena to drop the entire charade and just go back home, though Father had to admit he knew she’d never give it up. How could she? Lena had spent four years fighting. She had a duty, not just to King and Country, but to everyone who depended on her.

Lena couldn’t fathom the idea of stopping now, not when there were rumors of an invasion of France coming. Not when she had promised to see this war to the end. The brief cat-and-mouse game in France notwithstanding, she was more committed than ever to taking down Jerry once and for all. She was thrilled to be back home, but Lena was even more thrilled to head back to the air and fight.

Overall, though, she was _home._ Not just back at base, even. Actually _home._ Back to London, bouncing back twice as resilient after the Blitz, back to Emily, who desperately clung to her and never wanted to let go, back to the familiar foods and sights and smells she had grown to love and cherish. For the first time since defying her parents and going to the RAF, Lena could finally sit back for a moment and truly appreciate all that had been provided for her.


	13. Primo Victoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Normandy landings begin, and with the Luftwaffe decimated, there seems to be little opposition for Tracer.

_June 6th, 1944_

“I can’t see the Bois de Bavant,” Fisher muttered.

The slow, even drone of Lena’s plane was about the only thing keeping her from going crazy. She rocked her wings for a second to look down on Normandy’s beaches, spotting not just pillars of smoke rising up from German positions, but the flashes of large guns and the occasional explosion from an off-shore battery broke up the scene, both literally and figuratively.

“For God’s sake, Jack, it’s the biggest forest in Normandy,” Horne complained. “Pay attention!”

“I am!” he said. “It’s not there!”

“Well, perhaps they moved it,” Horne said deadpan. “By my mark, we’re on track. Bank left six degrees in five, four, three…”

Lena couldn’t help but laugh as Horne continued to count down, signaling their approach into the turn as she began to follow Horne. No German planes today. Looked like Jerry had enough of getting shot down by their new planes. She had to admit, having the Americans nearby was even better, but each American plane was taking kills away from her. Made her a bit jealous, truth be told. But, without them, she didn’t think they’d be on their way to taking revenge for 1940. She _definitely_ didn’t think she’d still be flying the same skies four years later, taking the fight back to the Germans.

“Looks like a hell of a fight down there,” Lena said, unable to tear herself away from checking the beaches. But, she had full confidence that they’d be able to pull this whole invasion bit off. After all, they’d spent years preparing for it.

“Yeah, don’t get too wrapped up in watching,” Horne said. “Something’s off about today, I can feel it.”

Fisher groaned. “You always say that, sir!”

“And nine times out of ten I’m right. Shut up and keep scanning.”

The day felt calm, all things considered. She glanced around – British bombers were getting close to the max range that Lena and the flight could escort them. Soon, they’d have to break off and head back to England. For all their technology, they still couldn’t keep their bombers escorted for long, and that alone frustrated Lena. She much would have preferred to keep them safe as much as possible, especially with so many experienced German pilots still in the sky.

“We’re hitting the red line mark now,” Horne announced. “I’ll let Mother Hen know that we’re going to break off soon.”

“Is that the Bois de Bavant down there?” Fisher asked.

“The Boi-” Horne muttered, confused. “No! Forget about it, Jack, we’re past that forest now! Focus on flying, you absolute weapon.”

Lena smiled, scanning the skies as Horne and Fisher had their little row. May as well have _one_ of them keeping watch. Blue skies for miles around, only with the occasional streak of white where a cloud drifted lazily by. This was the sort of war she was much more used to, but good _Lord_ it was boring.

For a split second, she thought she saw something out on the horizon, like a distant Jerry plane. But that couldn’t be right. Most of Jerry’s planes had been knocked out earlier, she thought. But something about the way this dot was steadily approaching made her cautious.

Furrowing her brow, Lena picked up her radio. “Hey, you guys see this, right? That dot on bearing 137?”

“What?” Horne said. “Huh, yeah, I see it. Alright, get ready to intercept, lads. Looks like Jerry’s being brave today.”

Something was off. She didn’t like how it looked. Something was just _strange_ about it, but Lena couldn’t put her finger on it.

Faster than she thought plausible, the dot suddenly came into view, screaming past them and lighting up a bomber. Seven more descended down, taking more and more bombers with them.

“Whoa!” Lena shouted, trying to track where the German plane had gone. What even _was_ it? “Where’d that thing go?”

“I don’t know! Keep scanning!”

She looked at every possible angle she had – left, right, up, behind, but couldn’t find the nebulous plane anywhere. In an instant, it had flashed by her again, this time in front of her plane.

“No fair!” she said. “That thing’s way faster than us!”

“It doesn’t have a bloody prop!” Fisher yelled.

“Get a hold of yourself, lad!” Horne ordered. “We’re going to have to break off, we don’t have the fuel to chase some Jerry fast mover.”

Lena shook her head. It was _always_ the same story. Had to go back, couldn’t confirm anything. The Americans never had this problem, so why was it that Horne was always so reluctant to keep fighting? What was the point of flying over here if they couldn’t _do _anything?

The sound of a gun firing drew her attention away. Something smacked her plane, and she looked around. That strange Jerry fighter was getting out of here, and she was also missing her right wingtip.

“Not again!” Lena moaned. At least this wasn’t _nearly_ as disastrous as the last time she got shot at. “How are we supposed to outrun this thing?”

“Just bloody fly and hope they don’t want to test the Royal Navy!”

Ironically, that was about the best advice she had ever heard from Horne. Lena turned on wartime emergency power, pushing the engine to its limit as the water and oil heated up. She couldn’t see the German plane, but she had never much seen it anyway outside of a few blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpses.

Lena and her flight remained unmolested on their return to England. She wasn’t sure, but that encounter with what she later learned was a “jet fighter” told Lena that the age of the piston engine was over. How were they supposed to catch Jerry now if they were faster than anything else in existence?

* * *

_February 13th, 1945_

Lena turned over the locket she had gotten from Emily in her hands, a small silver sterling thing that Emily had apparently saved up for months in order to obtain. In it, there was a small picture of Emily, cropped from her official photographs for the nurse’s board at the local hospital. Lena couldn’t help but wonder if she could get something like that over here in France. Maybe it’d be a nice gift for her this Christmas.

Beyond that, though, Lena looked out to the night sky, escorting a group of American bombers on their way to destroy another German city. Off in the distance, she could see a peculiar orange hue rising up from the horizon, no doubt a successful attack somewhere else.

“Be careful,” Horne reported, the dim light in his Spitfire the only clue Lena had that he was even there. “Ack-ack hasn’t been heavy lately, but we’re nearing Dresden tonight.”

Lena had never much been told what exactly was so important about Dresden, other than the fact it was a capital of some German state. She looked down as the first bombs began to hit, spotting first the small explosions.

Slowly, though, she saw the fires start to rise up, unchecked and unbridled in their rage. The night, which had been dark owing to many Germans turning off their lights to prevent being bombed, now lit up with the same orange hue that she had seen earlier. Earlier than just tonight, even. She remembered what London looked like when it was burning like this, attacked by German firebombs in the middle of the night.

Back then, she blamed herself for not being able to help and protect her city. She remembered how loud the screams and blazing infernos had been, how impossibly small she felt when confronted with a fire that ran unchecked. Did the Germans have enough water to keep this blaze under control? If they did, how many would die before the fires died down?

As Horne gave the order to turn back to base, Lena couldn’t help but look at the locket again, wondering what the purpose of this night’s attack was.

* * *

_May 8th, 1945_

The end of the war had finally come.

Lena had flown back home, to be with familiar faces, familiar arms, and familiar places. The same world she had left behind in 1939 was now coming back to her as the war wound down and the Germans surrendered. For a moment, there was a worry she would be sent to the Pacific to destroy the Japanese, or what remained of them, but those fears were unfounded. Lena was to be released from service as soon as possible, assuming she didn’t want to stay.

In the end, Lena had loved flying. She had loved going to the sky, protecting England, France, her friends, newly-found allies. But while she had loved flying, she also desperately missed the comfort of home. She missed being able to come home to Emily’s arms, bake with her and waste the day away. She missed going to her parent’s house for Sunday dinners.

Therefore, as much as she would have made working as a test pilot for new British planes in the post-war world, Lena hung up her fighter’s cap in May of 1945. Just as quickly as she had adopted the name of Leonard Oxton, she reassumed her former identity as Lena Oxton. Nobody looked twice at the unassuming London girl as she and Emily moved to the latter’s home town in Scotland.

She had done everything that was asked of her, and more. For that, she had been repaid. Even when the world seemed to be at its lowest point in history, when all hope seemed lost, she still managed to stay upbeat and keep herself going. Despite all the hardships she had gone through, the disasters she had encountered, and more than a few near misses, she had survived.

And, right now, Lena couldn’t be any happier.


End file.
